Is that it?

The title of this post should be “1 down 24 more to go” but unfortunately, suffering from chemo-brain, I am not sure if I will be able to count backwards...

Chemo-brain is an interesting phenomenon, I read about it but until recently I couldn’t believe it was real. It all started when I noticed I had difficulties reading, words didn’t make sense and I couldn’t concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes. Then I started forgetting things and very often I couldn’t find the right words to say what I wanted. It is all very subtle, it’s not like if I went completely gaga! At least not yet! It is very frustrating though. I blame it on anxiety and fatigue combined with the chemotherapy treatment. Trying to deal with my current chicken memory condition, I started writing everything on my agenda and keeping lists for everything, but, as expected, I tend to forget to look at my agenda and end up mixing appointment and arriving too early or too late.

Luckily today I got to my first radiotherapy appointment on time, no mix ups, and no delays. I chose to be the first patient every morning, it keeps the rest of my day free and gets me back into a routine. This week I will be discussing the possibility of going back to work with the occupational health physician of my employer, if he agrees that I am well enough to go back, having radiotherapy early in the morning is great, I can go straight from the clinic to the office without wasting too much time.

Let me now try to give a short description of my day. As usual I spent half of the night awake, stressing about everything and upset with myself for not being able to relax. I woke up before the alarm rang and got up feeling dead tired. It is a gloomy, rainy day today, so I decided to take a cab to the clinic instead of waiting for the bus in the dark and rain. After a small chat with the radiotherapist about skin care, side effects and all that usual bla-bla, I signed a form, once again, and went to the treatment room. “Undress waist up”, “lie down here”, “put your arms there”, “a bit more to the side”, “now don’t move”, “try to relax”, etc. The radiotherapists make some pen marks on my skin, right where my lovely tattoos are, align the machine and explain me that they will start by taking an x-ray of my chest. They leave the room, leaving Red Hot Chilli Peppers playing, the By the Way album, if I am not wrong, and after three songs I was done. The radiation is given in two positions and each radiation lasts no longer than 15 or 20 seconds. So, the machine rotates until it gets into the right position, beams me some photons, rotates again, beams me some more and that’s it. I felt absolutely nothing, my arms didn’t hurt and all that stress was for nothing.

That’s it. This was my first radiotherapy session. I got dressed and headed to the ground floor, to the Macmillan centre where I had booked my first massage. I am entitled to four massages, it is a luxury that I will not waste. The massage was nice, I got so relaxed I almost fell asleep.

At noon I had an appointment at the St John and St Elizabeth Hospital with the physiotherapist, once again I lie down, third time this morning, and get a massage and some stretching exercises for my arm, which is getting better and better.

As soon as I got home I applied some of the aqueous cream the radiotherapist gave me. I hope my skin won’t get too damaged.

It doesn’t seem like a lot, but for me this was a full day. I feel exhausted. Going to watch some trash TV now.