Husband's radiation starts tomorrow

Josephg said:

Skin Care and Radiation Oncologist Visits

Hi DW,

A female friend of mine had radiation treatments and advised that she had significant skin irritation issues, and she had to use skin care products (I do not remember what) to help ease the irritation.  So, I was expecting them, when I had my radiation therapy.  As it turned out, I had no skin reactions or issues whatsoever during my radiation treatments.

Regarding the Radiation Oncologist visits, I am assuming that you are referring to the weekly visits with the rad onc during the treatment period.  My weekly visits, lasting about 5-10 minutes each, consisted of simply answering questions related to (1) bowel movement/consistency and urinary changes, (2) blood occurrences, if any, in the stool or uirne, and if so, what frequency, (3) the extent of fatigue being encountered, and (4) if there were any unusual pains or other symptoms that arose during the treatments.  In reality, the attending nurse asked all of these questions and entered the answers into the database each week, before the rad onc walked into the exam room.  Further, the nurse offered advice on any answers to questions that were out of the ordinary.

If you want to share my radiation treatment experience with your hubby, you can find it here.

http://csn.cancer.org/node/188931?page=5  titled Salvage Treatment

 

I wish your hubby the best of luck during the treatment period and afterward.

2009 I had radical surgery and in 2011 my psa rose to .06 and was told I needed salvage radiation and began 35 treatments with no side effects at all you could never see any discoloration of the skin at all.I never knew I was getting radiation except they said I was. For 2 and half years now my psa is less than .01. Pray your husband does fine.As far as weekly visits with the oncologist I do not remember any the person giving the treatments might ask me how I felt.

Double Whammy said:

The machine was broken!

So we drove to Sacramento this morning (about 40 minutes) only to sit in the waiting room for 30 minutes and to learn the darn thing broke down and engineers were on the way to fix it.  So we'll start tomorrow.  When I was having radiation (at another facility), the stupid machine broke down at least 3 times.  Of course, if you ask how often this happens, they tell you never or almost never.  Well, I wonder . . .

He got questions answered about skin care and doc visits and they are consistent with your answers.  They explained that a larger area of skin is being radiated for breast cancer, while with IMRT, it is a beam that passes through the skin and sort of envelops the area radiated inside (or something like that).  He will see the rad onc weekly. 

Thanks for the feedback.  Nice to know that this will likely be painless and quick.  We'll try this again tomorrow. 

S

Suzanne

Just to wish your husband an eventless treatment. The “false” start is typical in IMRT machines. I also had one-day postponed because of equipment maintenance. These machines got low allowances (0.XX mm) in precision so that they stop operating for the good of the treatment and of us (lesser collateral damage).

In my experience with RT at the age of 56, I never felt fatigue (played golf on weekends) or nausea or anything that impaired my daily routine. I had a sensation of burning pain on my fifths’ week of treatment when urinating and the stool became much liquefied with traces of blood (proctitis), although no skin burning marks. My doctor gave me medicines including a cream for the skin in case of need.

For the ones following your case, here is your story:

http://csn.cancer.org/node/263159
http://csn.cancer.org/node/264459

Best wishes for 2014

VG