10 things I hate about radiation
The epidemic of people undergoing radiation is growing in my world. And I have thoughts.
Part of this is due to knowing parents and friends with parents all who are entering or well into their 70th decade. And unfortunately, cancer is a big part of living a long time.
Part of it is once you are diagnosed with cancer all of a sudden others going through or having been through the system pop into your world. It’s actually amazing how many women I do yoga with who have had breast cancer.
One of the very common treatments with breast cancer is radiation and while they will sell you on its benefits and its statistical lessening of recurrence they won’t tell you how much it sucks.
10 things that absolutely suck about radiation:
1) No one feels healthy in a hospital gown. I mean how can you, they are scratchy and unflattering and while mine came in either sad purple or very sad green and I got to have it open to the front it doesn’t look or feel good. Plus as time goes on it hurts to put clothes on and off because your body has a massive sunburn and clothes suck.
2) You have to go to the same place at the same time every day. So this statement declares that I am obviously not a corporate employee, but at least at a job you get paid. It’s a drag… it’s every damn day… and it takes a lot of time and energy and mostly your whole schedule is centered around this appointment. I drove 340 miles for my radiation. and that does not even count the consults and CAT scan and such. And I live close to my hospital.
3) You will hate the smell of calendula cream. And you will, or rather you should use at least a tube a week. I bought the three pack and was shocked that it was gone within 2 weeks. So buy the 3 pack and if you don’t use it all it is actual medicinal cream so will come in handy someday for something.
4) You will ruin all of your clothes. Go to goodwill and buy some soft crappy clothes you care nothing about and that you can ritually burn after. Between the calendula cream and the castor oil everything I own had boob oil blotches.
5) The appointment lasts like 5 minutes but can take up to 4 hours depending on if the radiation machine is broken, if traffic is a nightmare and you have to leave an hour earlier than you thought, you have to get there in enough time to change into your super sexy hospital gown and you have to change back to go home. Some days it feels like forever.
6) The burn is real. And it doesn’t show up right away so even though you feel ok, immediately start the 3x a day calendula and 1-2x a day castor oil application. Come session 20 you will thank me. Or rather you body will thank me. And seriously get some clothes you can just get rid of post because the level of cream goo is not going to budge. You might also get these awesome bumps/blisters and sometimes they will open and oooze. ugh.
7) Your radiated part will feel like beef jerky. It will feel terrible and weird and not so bad and bad and hot and cold and tender and sharp and generally it will feel like a weird stuck onto you part and not part of you at all.
8) There comes a moment when you realize you can no longer make one more decision and you start going to your local gourmet grocer after your sessions to find dinner because you cannot even decide let alone cook anything ever again. (it feels like it but you will return) I kept saying I have the radiation sickness like Princess Leia says to Han about hibernation sickness. (I thought I was hilarious-good thing it was mostly cats around me all day)
9) Your body literally has a low-grade infection from being bombarded with radiation daily and therefore no matter how healthy you are you will get so tired you can’t even believe it. Part of this exhaustion comes from going to the same damn boring place every day, and part of this comes form putting cream on your beef jerky boob, and part of this comes from deciding what to eat but mostly it comes from your body being slightly irritated every single day by poisonous waves of creepy green light.
10) You can’t sleep because everything hurts and is weird. Take the sleeping meds. I hated the idea of using NyQuil pm to sleep every night but every time I moved it hurt and would wake me up. Also, the level of exhaustion is so deep you actually can’t sleep.
Links to things I talked about on amazon, buying from this post gives me a tiny income to buy more things on amazon and help supports to keep me writing more helpful things about my journey through cancer.
Also treat yourself to some temporary tattoos to make everything feel funner (shut up it is too a word)
