CONGRATS on finishing up chemo!...you are on the home stretch now...uh, you have to find your own radiologist?...uh, that doesn't sound right...your oncologist or surgeon should be making a"formal" referral for you...my surgeon's office took care of all that..surely they have radiologist that they've worked with...you might want to ask other cancer patients who they've used...also, you'll be going Mon-Fri for 6 to 61/2 weeks straight so driving distance might affect your decision..my doc wanted me to go to someone that was over a 1 hour drive EACH way...I had an old car and asked to go to someone closer...he complied and made the referral to another office that was only 10 min from my house...makes quite a difference if you have to go to your appts before or after work, etc...because you have to make every appt or the treatments are not effective, or worse, have to start over...just some things to consider....
I did NOT get tattos...I'm not sure if they have to do that anymore (maybe for neck cancer because they have to be so exact)...they just put stickers on me that went home with me and stayed on the whole 6 weeks...if one came off, they just replaced it..they stayed on in the shower too...so you might want to ask if they do that instead of permanent tattoos which I would not have liked!
Radiation was a breeze for me compared to chemo/surgery... just laid on the table for 10 min and i was done...the only side effect I got was some fatigue and some skin burning toward the end (no worse than a sunburn)...they will probably give you creams for the burning and it healed up within a week after I finished
Your first appt will be like a "mock" treatment..no radiation but they do measurements to make sure the xrays go exactly where it needs to go...also they will fit you for this device you lay in that will keep you in the right position every time you come in...this now helps to avoid any damage to your lungs/heart
The good news is I was told radiation treatment cuts your chance of the cancer coming back from 30 to 5%!!....I liked those odds
Don't worry, you'll do fine...one note of caution: I too had my treatments during the summer and was advised to stay out of the sun ...so no sunbathing while going through treatment
keep us updated...you go girl!!!
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