Cancer Lingo: "Rads"

In cancer lingo, I'll start rads (short for radiation treatment) tomorrow. As I mentioned last week, I went last Thursday to get measured and set up for the treatments. Evidently, this is quite a science and very high-tech, and a lot goes into designing the treatment and getting everything just right. Of course, with rads, we are treating cancer with something that can actually cause cancer (seems a bit strange, doesn't it?), so they have to make sure that they only target the areas they want to treat, and not other parts of the body (like your heart, lungs, etc). And so, as part of the initial set-up appointment last week, I had a CT scan during which they evidently measured all of my insides in order to make sure that the beams of radiation only hit the breast tissue and not my internal organs. That would stink.

They also "marked" me, so I look a little freakish now with big blue and black markings on my torso with plastic tape over them. The tape already came off once (thanks to profuse sweating during one of my workouts over the weekend), causing me to have to go back in yesterday to be remarked.

The great news is that I'll start treatments tomorrow, which means that I should wrap up the 33 treatments right at the beginning of February. The folks at the Dan Rudy Cancer Center who run the radiation department are more than delightful, so if I've got to go someplace 33 times, I can't think of a better place (well, on second thought, I can think of better places to go repeatedly, but if I've got to go for this kind of thing, this is the place for me).

I saw Dr. Rosenblatt, my radiation oncologist, again last week, and on the off chance that he's reading this, let me reiterate how much I like and admire him!! : )

Okay, that's it for now. Off to finish addressing Christmas cards. Am I the only person around who does this anymore? I get fewer and fewer cards each year, but religiously send my 150 cards out to friends and family. It's a tradition I'm not willing to give up. Call me crazy.

Happy Holidays!

Erin