Radiation Protection

I've been getting radiation every day for the last almost 2 weeks -- and additionally I get x-rays on Thursdays, so the doc can check on what they are doing and make sure it's still right. It's a very nice team and the radiation onc is great -- quite possibly the best doctor I've seen yet, though that's a tough one. (Have I mentioned that since I changed medical oncologists to do the last course of chemo I am now in a quandary about which one to stick with, because I like them both, and they both seem to be good at what they do.....?)

I haven't had to wait very long yet, except for the first two days when they were working on getting the positioning of my radiation exactly right. Usually that's just one day but the doc said he decided afterwards that there was a better way he could aim the radiation which would involve less of my lung. (I'm lucky that the breast cancer was in my right breast, so no heart issues with radiation.) About 10% of my lung will be affected, which should be okay since I'm not a smoker, the doc said. And of course you know my theory on all this stuff: as long as I keep biking and swimming and walking, lots, as usual..... well I mean it has to be like the opposite of smoking, to some extent, right? except for when I'm swimming and somehow there is cigarette smoke at the far end of the pool..... I've never SEEN anyone smoking; it might be in the next room and coming through the vents..... and there was a time when they actually had people come paint on the far end of the pool.... during the midday swim! At the high school pool, while school is in session! OKay, the pool is open every day, but if they had waited til summer the doors are open, at least.... Sorry, major digression there.

Anyway, back to the radiation thing. While I'm doing radiation I see the radiation oncologist every week, generally on Tuesdays, after I've had radiation -- though he's flexible if I have something else I need to do. He's good at explaining things, and he has okayed my bringing my bike in, should I be planning to ride with the Babes after rads, in which case I need to ride my nice bike to treatment. (I am unwilling to risk locking it outside -- bike theft is apparently big business around here, and no lock is unpickable.) MOst days I ride my 20 yr old mountain bike, and double lock it out there, hoping it would not be worth the trouble to steal -- most of the other bikes on the rack certainly look more tempting. Anyway last Tuesday I asked the doc why I have no lead protection while I am getting radiation, for the parts of my body that don't need it. I can feel it in my eyes..... (I close them, but my lids are not lead.) I was thinking he would say it was aimed very specifically, and that lead was not needed. Alan thought so too. I was planning to ask for lead aprons anyway, for my peace of mind. I still want them. I will have to try again. I was so taken aback by the doc's response that I forgot to ask for them.

What he said was quite the opposite of what I was expecting. There is so much radiation, he said, that I would need something the size of a safe to protect the rest of me from it -- and of course it would crush me. However, he also said that we have been conditioned to fear radiation, when in fact it is mostly children that are at risk from it, while their cells are still flexible. He said that it's not a big deal for the rest of us. (I did find myself wondering whether some of us have more flexible cells as adults..... but then I decided it probably bears no relation to personality....or inner youthfulness....) He said that they do sometimes administer radiation to children, but it's sad -- because they only do it when they must, when the child has something that would kill him or her now -- because s/he will probably get some kind of tumor 10-15 yrs later, from the radiation.

That gave me some pause, and some perspective on my situation. Whew, thank goodness I only have breast cancer, and not a kid with cancer who needs radiation badly enough to have it despite the likelihood that s/he will get a tumor later.....