Treatment Notes:

– really nothing to report, except for slipping by one of my guys at the front of the suite on my way back to the machine – being Perfectly on time and having him scramble to catch up with me today – hehehe (well, I’d take credit, but I think we’re maybe headed into that amorphous time of half-holiday-light traffic as we gear up for schools to start letting out for Christmas Break (yeah, I’m Jewish, I celebrate Chanukah, I’ve been known to have a Christmas tree, not a Chanukah Bush, get over the ultra-political-correctness already, will ya?)

Doctor’s Visit:

– Yeah, long story short:

She said she called my RSurg, had a discussion with her, and that my RSurg was okay with a “regular boost,” but was concerned that I was getting a “super boost,” and therefore was comfortable with the boost plan in place for me

. . . which claims, all of them, will be checked out by me, hopefully telephonically, with my RSurg, since I trust her, but do Not trust my ROnc to have the Whole Me in her best interest.  I wish I did, but I don’t.  Oh well.

. . . which boost plan has not been drawn up – What?  Yes, the boost plan (the last week or so of treatment where they take the daily amount of radiation currently spread over the whole boob, and concentrate that amount of radiation in the tumor bed only) has Not Yet been planned.

As I was writing the last sentence, my ROnc called me – she wants to get new CT readings (since I’m having some swelling – or she finally believes I am – she never got to see me before I started rad therapy and I swelled almost immediately) but using my existing tattoos – to make sure the boost plan is completely accurate (since my body has changed with the swelling since beginning this treatment, the CT scans done a week before I began treatment may not be accurate to my anatomy today).  Then she will take Thursday and Friday to do the boost plan.  She will print it out for me (like I asked her to do today with the regular plan) so we can discuss it next Monday at our visit.

Then I’ll have all of next week, still on the original and unchanged first part of the plan to decide if I want to do the boost or not (which, if I do it, will start the following Monday) without getting me into a situation where I don’t have enough time to consider boost or no boost before we’re forced to consider an unintended break in treatment.

So, that’s the plan for the moment, so to speak.]

Side Effects:

– Um, other than blood pressure of 140/75 this morning (WAY high for me – I’m usually – well, BC as in Before Cancer anyways – around 110/60 normally), but since I was planning to follow my “new normal” Monday schedule of 1) get my radiation treatment, 2) put my doctor in her place, 3) go to work – I was okay with that reading (this too shall pass) – the good old “white-coat syndrome” magnified and all that.

Update: This early evening before acupuncture, Mo took my blood pressure again – 110/70.  Not surprising at all.  I was having the Pavlovian relaxation reaction just being there knowing what we were about to do was going to make me feel better, immediately and for days to come.

In fact, when I left I shared the elevator down with another cancer patient I had met at acupuncture and we both had that ever so slightly sleepy, very relaxed ‘I just had acupuncture’ look on both our faces and shared that moment together in the elevator on the way downstairs.

– less pain today.  I’m inside the week that my acupuncture treatment effects seem to last (I managed to get another appt with Mo tonight – yay!), and the past 4 days of not having to wear a bra, and being able to rest and/or sleep Whenever I Want have helped too – a much needed break indeed.

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