Radiant Radiotherapie
Pre Radiotherapy Imagery from April.
Today in the hyperthermia bed as the heat was increasing and my body was laying the ground work to start eliminating any cancer cells left over, I had the image of floating down a small stream on a leaf. My body was miniature and the leaf fully supported me. The sun was beaming down on my body in all its radiance. These sunbeams were like the radiation beams that will laser into the tumor cell area, surrounding tissues and lymph nodes. The water I was floating on was filled with my immune cells moving through my whole body.
From beneath me, my immune cells supported my whole body and were able to continue going after cancer cells, the sun shone down beaming 1000x its healing power to finish off all toxic cells and any scavanger cancer cells still remaining.
Angels lined the stream supporting my passage through.
preparing for my radiochemo therapy treatment
And so, the beginning of a new course of treatment begins.
I had no idea what was in store for me as I made my way through the radiotherapie and chemo treatment program. I started my first treatment 27 April on a Thursday, had two days and then a break. Getting the treatment itself is like driving a big fancy car. I get on a bed that lifts me up and under this giant radiation device. I feel like I’m being lifted up towards the heavens and being prepared for a massive blast of focused intensity that lasts in total for 6 minutes, 2 minutes of that being the actual radiation zooming in on both sides of my pelvic cavity.
It’s deceptively easy because until the side effects start kicking in, it feels like a magical way to eliminate cancer cells. My commute is lovely and serene and takes me about 40 minutes. I drive along Zurich Seestrasse to Horgen and drive onto a small car ferry that glides across the lake to Meilen in 10 minutes. I enjoy the views of the Alps and the shimmering lake. Once off the ferry, it’s an easy lake shore drive for 7 minutes to the Mannedorf Spital where I go directly to a separate wing that is only radiation. The hospital does this treatment in two locations: at the busy downtown hospital site or at the one I go to out of town on the lake. They even cover the ferry costs for you and provide free parking if you choose the lakeside hospital. Covering the ferry costs was the deal breaker for me making it easy to choose the ferry route. This was also the same hospital I had my lung surgeries in and I had already developed an affinity for this area.
ferry from Horgen to Meilen
I am also taking a light dose chemo pill daily to enhance the radiation effects. My Oncologist said that some side effects from the chemo pill are the extreme sensitivity in your fingers and feet. Your skin can become sensitive to hot and cold, the fingerpads turn red and the skin can start peeling away. As I didn’t have any strong reactions to the infusions my Oncologist thought I’d be fine and basically, not to worry, but do have the awareness this can happen.
My Oncologist Radiologist and nurses for radiation had their own stories to tell me about possible side effects from the radiation and what to watch for. It’s hard to imagine that any of this will happen to you when you’re sitting there feeling just fine and besides, the side effects sound like they’re from another world. How could this possibly happen to my body? I listened, although admittedly a little detached from it all, but I wanted to be aware of what’s possible should anything come up for me.
My mom came with me until 31 May when she left to go back to Canada. In the waiting room.
We often enjoyed a cafe creme in Meilen after treatments.
Radiation side effects that were within the realm of reality for where my primary tumor was in the rectum were not sounding so desirable if you’re a woman. Possibility of the skin burning, peeling, and becoming itchy anywhere within the basin of the pelvic floor area and all the sensitive tissue lining that lives there were all vulnerable to the spill over effects from the radiation. I prayed I would not have to experience what this might be like.
I was free of all these predicted side effects for probably 3.5/4 weeks until suddenly I started to notice little sensations brewing down under making it painful to do the daily elimination. My fingers started getting redder and a little more numb on the tips and then the skin started drying up and cracking. Trying to do simple things like flip open the lid on a jar or do the dishes started to become more difficult and painful. I am still experiencing these sensations as I type, however typing on my computer is still one thing I can do pain-free. Texting on my phone has become challenging because it hurts my fingers and the screen won’t take my fingerprint pressure because I have no fingerprints left. Walking has become more of a chore with painful feet so I’ve found exercise is limited.
As the days progressed, each day began to take on a slow, unending quality that rolled into a long night and I was getting more and more mentally consumed trying to find ways to deal with the growing discomforts. Finally, I wrote my Oncologist and said I think I need some pain management. As was the same protocol with my recovery from surgery, once you start the drugs you need to take enough of them to reduce the pain and then keep taking them consistently until the treatment is over and the side effects diminished.
I’m not a fan of drugs, however I have learned to appreciate their place to help one maintain a functioning day to day life. Once I started on them, I realized that I had more mental energy and wasn’t so dragged down all the time. While they wouldn’t take away the pain completely, they significantly reduced it and allowed my mind to be freed up so I wasn’t tired all the time.
During my treatments, I also had regular massage and energy work sessions that would significantly reduce my pain and help keep the energy flowing in my body for healing. I also managed to go to Qigong and a light exercise class once a week even though I didn’t feel like my body could do anything. To my surprise, once I was there my body was able to do more than I thought it could and I always felt better after the movement and breathing. As the side effects increased, I found it harder to be powered by my own will and realized how important it is to find movement activities and self-care practices that will support you. Do something that gets you out of the house and into a positive and uplifting atmosphere.
My radiotherapie treatments were scheduled for 5 weeks – 25x radiation in the general area where the primary tumor was and a 6th week called a ‘boost’ week with a range of 5-8x. These visits were specifically to target the area where the tumor was and to eliminate any scavenger cancer cells lurking in the surrounding tissue.
Daily treatments: Monday-Friday. Lift Up for Radiation!
6 weeks would equal 30 visits meaning 5x of the ‘boost.’ Why did the doctor say, “it can be 5-8x?” This began to gnaw away at me and as I felt more and more uncomfortable, I asked my doctor, “what’s the difference whether it’s 5 or 8?” I was feeling so grumpy with the continuously building skin irritations, I told him I’m going for 5x as I couldn’t imagine bearing anymore. I felt so sure about it. He said, “we’ll talk next week, see how you’re doing and you can decide then.”
A week passed and we’re meeting about how many more boosts. He reminded me that the boosts are replacing the operation I didn’t get to have because my body had responded so well to all the treatments I’d been doing. What we’re doing today is not a typical route we normally take so I don’t have enough data from previous interventions to tell you if 8 makes more of a difference than 5.
I began to feel the weight of making this decision get heavier and heavier in my mind and heart. I wanted to make the RIGHT decision to ensure that cancer cells would never come back here again. No doctor was able to give me a definitive answer and I started to really want one. This is where I just wanted someone to tell me what was the optimum number. I assumed 8 would be it as that was the maximum and I was willing to push through and suffer a little longer if it really would make a difference.
This was a breaking or rather a turning point for me. Noticing how difficult the decision was to make and that I was looking outward for an answer to stop my inner turmoil. I knew instinctively that the answer was not to be found outside of myself, that it had to come from within. Decisions like these need to be arrived at with a feeling of peace and a deep inner trust. I lay awake at night, by body clearly agitated by my initial decision of doing all 8 boosts. Clearly, I was not at a peaceful decision yet.
I started listening to my heart and new information started to percolate into my awareness. I realized that maybe just because 8 was the maximum, didn’t mean it was the best or optimum amount for me. It was a random number. What started to emerge into my awareness was a pattern I played out time and time again. This is one of: hang in there, push through, tough it out, you can do it……ALL. This type of thinking drove my behavior and my choices. This pattern was all too familiar to me and I could flash back through my life like a rolodex with all the times I operated from this place, all the while making choices governed by my unconscious patterning.
When these shadow sides of yourself are revealed and brought out into the light for further inspection, it simply rocks your world. Starts to turn it upside down. At this point, you have a choice, to follow the flow of this new tributary or stick to the regular route. Healing from cancer has definitely rocked my world and how I take care of my SELF, so in my mind and heart I choose to follow new tributaries.
Radio Techs - my awesome female support team!!
I chose 6 boosts and felt complete with that number. I finished on Wednesday, June 14th. While I was very happy to have completed this package of treatments, I was still in the midst of managing intensive self care for the side effects so it wasn’t like everything stopped or went away with the treatments. I’m told it will take 1-2 weeks for the physical discomforts to go away. The body needs time, love, and care to continue healing. Patience.
Be gentle with yourself, you’re doing the best you can.
In sharing with my amazing Oncologist who is a caring and attentive listener, I was able to process through how it’s been hard for me emotionally and psychologically. He encouraged me to write about it because he said, “this is your lowest point in your treatment and it has brought you to such a vulnerable and new way of experiencing your life that you may never be here again.” This was good to hear from him as he has a bigger perspective about what people go through over the course of time with cancer.
This is not anything I would choose to go through, but since I’m here, I have the honor of being present for where it takes me. Despite the hard places I’ve been visiting, I would not give it up or change it for anything, for the depths I have gone, allows me the return extension into a greater place of loving myself and others that is brighter than I could ever have imagined.
When you are cracked open at your core, vulnerability is waiting for you. Take it by the hand and you are graced with the courage to walk your own true path.
“There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” – Leonard Cohen