Next step: Radiation

Many people that I have talked to about my journey through cancer think that radiation and chemotherapy were one in the same. They are not.

Chemotherapy is a chemical that is injected or swallowed into your system that attacks cancer in the blood and lymphatic system. Wherever blood goes, chemotherapy goes. Radiation is a spot cure. They point the radiation beams where the cancer is or was and the beams of invisible poison kill the cancer at the spot. I was unfortunate enough to need both.

I say unfortunate here but actually I was very fortunate. I have a few friends who have been going through their cancer journeys for years. Mine was very acute. I was diagnosed, they cut it out, they treated my lymphatic system via chemotherapy, they treated the site of the tumors with radiation. One after another, boom, boom, boom, and boom. And then I moved on.

I didn't feel that way when I was going through it. It seemed like the treatment was never ending. All summer, the only goal I had was to finish chemotherapy. I was certain that if I died from cancer it would be from chemo. The digestive pain and the bone pain was worse than the pain of cancer. I thank marijuana for the relief from digestive pain and I thank disability leave for the relief of bone pain. Me and my recliner and a cold drink became BFF's over the summer of 2013. Extra special thanks to Mike Fix who installed the central A/C in my house so I could convalesce comfortably this summer. Lord knows my Facebook friends got sick of seeing me bitch about my 89 degree house during the summer.

When radiation started on August 5th, I began going to Dr Khalil under protest. I went every weekday M-F through September 20th. Dr Dougherty told me that he couldn't decide if I needed radiation. So he sent me to talk to Dr Khalil, a radiation specialist. He told me that I was on the border between needing it or not. He referred me to Dr. Malik at Roswell Hospital for a 2nd opinion.

Before meeting with Dr Malik, I had decided I was not going to go through with radiation. My chances of a breast cancer recurrence were already down to 16-20% with the mastectomy and chemo. That was good enough for me. Radiation would bring it down to only 5%. That may seem like a no brainer to you, but consider this.... I have not had (a successful) reconstruction yet. Radiation will delay reconstruction by 9 months to 1 year. Until then I will either be flat chested or wear a set of prosthetic breasts.  With the mastectomy I lost my nipples (stop snickering). With radiation, the surgeon cannot reconstruct them, the skin is too damaged and would not recover from nipple reconstructive surgery.  With radiation, my ribs will forever be softened... which won't be a big issue unless there is trauma. Uh... have you MET ME??? I fall, break ankles, walk into walls, fall up stairs, and am by far the worst driver you have ever met. There WILL be trauma. Dr Khalil shrugged this off, but this was a major concern of mine. Will I break a rib every time I walk into a door frame??? No way, 20% to 5% was not that big of a reduction. I liked my odds at 20% chance of recurrence. I scheduled my reconstruction.

Then I met with Dr Malik at Roswell for my 2nd opinion.  Dr Malik scared the shit out of me. She told me that this was my one and only chance to treat this stuff properly. If I refuse radiation and go forward with reconstruction, I have a 20% chance of recurrence. If I fall in the 80%.... awesome. If I don't (Which I have already shown my propensity to fall into the odd part of the odds) it will be virtually impossible to see it. Gone are the days when cancer would grow in my boobs where I can feel it. Going forward I will have fake boobs, so the cancer will grow on the chest wall beneath the fake boobs. I would not feel it... until it has been there awhile and most likely spread. So the crap that I have been through this past year is NOTHING compared to what it will take to beat cancer next time. #1 - I don't want to do any of this again. I am thankful for this experience, once, but I never want to do it again. #2 - there were times, especially during chemo, when I wanted to say goodbye to my family and give up. If this gets harder, I won't survive. 

So I reluctantly called Dr Khalil back and agreed to radiation. At the same time I called and canceled my reconstruction with Dr Shastri, my new surgeon. <Insert sad face here>
And so the 3rd party of my cancer journey began on August 5th 2013...daily radiation.