A Change in the Treatment Plan

I had six medical appointments last week, including spending two and a half hours at the clinic on Wednesday afternoon.

The end result is that there has been a change to my treatment plan. I will not be having surgery on Thursday, April 21. Instead, I soon will begin radiation treatments. Surgery will be scheduled after radiation, later in June.

Initially, this change left my head spinning as I was preparing in a variety of ways for surgery. But ultimately this is a better plan. There is at least one place (and maybe others) where the surgeon will not be able to get negative margins when removing the tumor. The radiation treatments make it more likely that the tumor will not grow back in those places. Also, I would not be a candidate for radiation if the cancer had spread. But, because I have no other detectable tumors, I do not have "advanced disease," and thus radiation can be included in the overall treatment plan.

Once they start, the radiation treatments are five days a week for five weeks. The appointments are short. It takes just a few minutes to zap the tumor with the radiation. The side effects are not as intense as chemotherapy. I'm told the main side effect is fatigue. I think I'll take that over mouth sores, nausea, tasteless food, and neutropenic fevers that send me to the hospital.

If I were still doing chemo, today would be the first day of infusions. But because I've finished chemo, I didn't have to go in this morning! That feels fantastic. I'm going to be shaking off the effects of the chemo for a few months. I can tell that my red blood cells/hemoglobin remain low. Still, hopefully from here I'll get stronger in body--that is a priority for me, along with radiation treatments.

Finally, based on absolutely nothing scientific or medical, I have this deep sense inside that, after the radiation and surgery to remove the tumor, no more cancer will be found on future scans. Perhaps it's wishful thinking. But that's my story and I'm sticking with it.