Share inspiring messages/photos to help others
We've collected so many of your tips to preparing for and getting through radiation treatment, and are working on putting it in a PDF to share with you. To add to this we were wondering if you had a short "words of wisdom/inspiration" that you could share here to include as well. Also, any photos of you during treatment?!
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To me, getting radiation therapy was the least stressful phase of treatment. All you have to do is show up. There are no big decisions to make and no test results to worry about.
Belleruth Naparstek has made some great guided imagery recordings that I used to deal with the anxiety of diagnosis and treatment. I didn't use the radiation one, but I would expect it to be good for someone who is nervous about it. "A Meditation to Help You With Radiation Therapy" by Belleruth Naparstek, published by HealthJourneys.
http://www.healthjourneys.com/Store/Products/Radia...
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Great idea with the guided imagery. And thanks for sharing this!
Anyone else?
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Thats a great idea. I am going to look into that. I have an hour and 15 min drive to the cancer center each day. I found Joel Osteens channel on Sirius radio and am enjoying his program on my daily drive. I am so tense and nervous during the treatment and find myself gripping the bar very hard. I try to be aware of it and tell myself relax your fingers, relax your back, relax your feet, etc. I say my prayers, with eyes TIGHTLY closed. Then when i am finished with that i try to think of a song to sing but can usually only come up with ABC song!! HaHa. Maybe next week I can get my courage up to open my eyes and watch the machine moving around me. I didnt think about having a picture taken while i am in the thing. I will ask the teck if she will take one for me.
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Sometimes I would close my eyes and imagine the buzzing sound of the machine was bees in a beautiful garden, and I would picture all the details of the garden. Hmm, was that the radiation therapy machine, or the MRI machine? I'm not sure. But it was a very nice garden, wherever it was.
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That's good, Mena, to use your driving time like that; may as well make something good out of it. And praying, and consciously relaxing each part of your body are super. (Just don't move.) Good for you, for exploring ways to cope rather than letting the anxiety have free rein. Maybe you can think of a good theme song before next time, and have it ready. The machine is pretty interesting. Maybe if you have the techs explain a bit about it, it will seem less scary?
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The ride to the radiation therapy was long coming and going. It was stressful for me each way. I dreaded going and I couldn't get my mind off how many more of the 33 treatments were left to go. To help me pass the time to and from the treatment center, I would listened to a book on cd. Go to you local library to sign out a book on a cd or download to your IPhone or android. It was a tremendous help for me to pass the time. I also listened to the story while waiting for my turn for radiation therspy.
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There was a health food store located 2 blocks from the hospital where I had radiation. On Mondays and Fridays, I would treat myself to some treat there! It made the weeks go faster!
My sister (also a BC survivor) had to drive 120 miles round trip EVERY day for Rads. We had a rotation schedule of family and friends to help her make the drive. On my 2 days to drive her, we used my "healthy treat" theory and would stop at Whole Foods.
We like food - it helped cheer us up! The reward system works!
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Thank you, All !! Keep the ideas flowing!
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I am doing whole brain radiation now. Halfway there. There is a blue light that comes on for me and I imagine that as a "healing light". I imagine it destroying the tiny bit of tumour surgery could not remove from my dura. This is extremely helpful two ways, one so I don't panic about the radiation and two it helps with the claustrophobic feeling of the mask that holds my head in place. Eyes are closed for me since I do better with imagining the "healing light".
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Radiation was the most emotionally challenging part of treatment for me. Radiation intentionally creates a very small risk of a very agressive cancer - to decrease a much larger risk of a relatively benign cancer. I still don't know that I like that trade-off. I had precisely a 3-week period when my workload wasn't overwhelming, soI had to just go with it. without having a chanceto do the research I would normally do before I decide make that kind of trade-off.
So, I decided to take steps to turn an inherently unhealthy treatment into something emotionally healthy, at least.
Every day while waiting for treatment I started working on a piece of the drawingn below. Sometimes I finished the piece while I was there, sometimes I finished it later in the day. It depended mostly on how many women ahead of me had lost their stickers (making my wait for treatment longer).
I incorporated the paper crane my radiological oncologist gave me (bottom center), traced from a photograph of it. I hadn't yet decided whether I was going to draw on the non-treatment weekends when the anniversary of Hiroshima rolled around. I was gung-ho enough in the early days that I wanted to keep drawing and get it done! It would have been perfect to draw the crane, which comes from the story of the little girl who acquired radiation sickness from the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, on the anniversary of the bomb. But I took that coincidence as a reminder that the point of hte drawing wasn't to finish the drawing, it was to intentionally walk through the treatment day by day, adding a bit more each day. So I waited through the weekend, and added the crane on Tuesday, the anniversary of the Nagasaki bomb.
I also incorporated the radiation targets, alignment, and frame marks. They are in purple (the color ink they used), but the color is hard to see in the drawing (I like that the radiation marks just fade into the picture). I had my daughter photograph me lying in treatment position, then I traced the marks onto the paper. I hadn't realized, until I saw the photograph, that they made a horizontal line. The purple radiation frame surrounds the left and right of the scrollwork in the left center of the page. The center of the page is the centerline of my body. The lower corners of the first row of scrollwork boxes include the four + signs that were alignment and target marks. The two alignment marks just above my waist are in the bridgework piece below creating ripples into the otherwise parallel contours.
The drawing is on my wall at work. I gave a copy of it to the radiologocial oncologist, and the 4 members of the radiology team who worked with me.
I'll take a copy on Tuesday or a week from Thursday when I see my surgeon again - hoping that I am not starting another cancer journey. (In the last ~2 weeks, the nipple in my healthy breast inverted - and a quick look tells me that that is one of the symptoms of inflammatory breast cancer, so I've made two tentative appointments - depending on when radiology is free.)
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I am 14 years post DCIS diagnosis and treatment. Treatment included full course of rads. Before starting I went to a couple support meetings. There I heard about rad burns, etc. Did not need that. Didn't go back. It was at about that point that I learned to cut anyone off fast that started telling me any negative stories. I had no problems with radiation treatments. My skin got only pink and dry. I started slathering on 100% aloe vera gel a few days before they started and throughout the app. two months. The rad onc had patients come back two weeks after treatment was completed for a check-up. He said I did so well I didn't need to. Everyone's experience is different. I wish mine for everyone. No breast cancer problems in the 14 years since.
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Just got my diagnosis, 7mm IDC, ER+ PR+, HER2-, Ki-67, 8%, scheduled for surgery in two weeks. Should be a relatively simple lumpectomy but complicated by ancient silicon implants (like 45 years old!) that have both intracapsular ruptured. Surgeon is afraid he won't be able to get decent margins, he might penetrate the capsule and leak silicon everywhere, so he wants a plastic surgeon who also wants to take out BOTH implants in the OR, replace with tissue expanders, prior to my radiation. I'm beginning to wish I'd done intraoperative radiation because it sounds like radiation is going to make both breasts harder to repair. This back and forth stuff is almost as tough as the word "cancer" used with your name in the same sentence. Does anybody have any experience with radiation and silicon implants?
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Has anyone had IORT (intraoperative radiation therapy) rather than traditional radiation? Has anyone done either with silicon implants in place? The idea of having radiation over and done at the time of surgery is compelling and worth the drive to the closest hospital that offers it but wondering how it will affect implants.
Thank you so much for your time. This is a terrific site
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I had iort. Feel free to pm me.
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This has helped me so much.... reading through all of the posts on here. I will eventually need radiation therapy and I have been so nervous about it. I also have heart problems (I had a heart attack and had stent placement just 4 months before I found out I had breast cancer; plus I have history of heart arrhythmia, and mild congestive heart failure) and so I worry about radiation's effect on my heart. Reading this has helped me to think less negatively. And, I love the idea of books on CDs!!
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I went everyday for 23 days on my lunch hour for my radiation treatment. Before I went in for the radiation I would lather my breast up with Aveeno cream and when it was over would lather again in the dressing room. I had minimal redness. Was never tired and had a great team of nurses. My experience was very positive and seemingly easy. The hardest part for me was the emotional drain and I took care of that with a lot of prayer and meditation.
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zoeycarolina, welcome to Breastcancer.org! Thank you for joining and posting -- we really appreciate you sharing your experience with us. We're sure it will help make others feel better about facing radiation.
We look forward to hearing more from you soon around the boards!
--The Mods
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While undergoing radiation therapy two years ago my way of coping was to write. I've compiled a series of essays I wrote which have been well received by both my radiological group and oncologist. I have them in a pdf format for e-mailing if anyone would be interested in them.
One essay:
June 2nd– 1 down, 34 to go . . .
I was lying on my back, arms up over my head under a machine that resembled something from War of the Worlds, and I started to cry.I wasn't in pain, not uncomfortable (more embarrassed).The surgeries were over.Breast cancer, diagnosed early, had been cut out of me and I don't have to face chemo – only look up and smile for the next seven weeks at this radiation machine looming above me.SMILE!
But, then, why was I crying?I really didn't have any right to indulge my emotions, but still I was overflowing – not sobbing, but just sort of overflowing like a swimming pool after a heavy rainstorm.Maybe that rainstorm was the previous ten weeks of uncertainty, diagnosis, lumpectomy and now radiation.Currently I'm watching the sun coming out from behind the clouds, but still walking around with my rain slicker close at hand (not wearing it, though).
This invader has been cut out of my right breast.It was found quite unexpectedly at my annual mammogram, as had my mother's some 30 years previously.Same scenario of biopsy, lumpectomy, radiation – and with the same doctor.She lived to the ripe old age of 94 and met her demise from a source other than her breast cancer.
On the other hand, Aunt Nellie (my father's older sister) was not as lucky.She passed away from this same trespasser in 1947, and as best I can estimate she was 50 years old.She lived in the day of finding a lump and having it diagnosed as malignant while still on the operating table.Aunt Nellie woke to find a hole in her chest (and, I'm sure, in her heart, too).
My tears weren't tears of distress – they have always flowed easily when confronted with love, unexpected kindness and beauty – but still sort of a mystery.Maybe relief, I don't know.
Or maybe just me "overflowing."
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Hi Karen,
Welcome to Breastcancer.org. Thank you for sharing your unique perspective with us -- we'd love to hear more from you and we encourage you to perhaps start your own thread where you can post your essays as inspiration to others who join here. We'd love to hear the rest of your story, and learn where you are now.
Thank you for sharing and surely inspiring others!
--The Mods
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I traded my breasts for super powers. I am reality driven, when the only appointment to make me cry was the plastic surgeon I realized alternative boobs were not for me. You find me flat and happy,10 months after surgery.
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I met the radiation machine like an episode of girls gone wild. It made me smile to flash my no boobs, knowing It would have killed me to flash them when I had them.
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My cancer center encourages us to make a green tea liquid and dab or spray it on our breast before radiation They say it’s helps with the burning. I have had 21 treatments and I have had a little soreness and skin darkening. No cracking or dryiness as of yet. I use an aloe vera plant after each treatment
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I was really bummed about going everyday, the drive, time off work, ugh but I have to say that the time passed quicker then I thought and the best part of this journey was meeting new women and having a great staff. I actually got to a point where I was looking forward to seeing everyone and sharing thoughts and ideas with each other. When my last day came I was actually hugging everyone and exchanging numbers and FB requests. We kept in touch over the summer and everyone is doing well! I really believe that God has put me on this path to help others and lift them up! I have met some wonderful people along the way and have been truly touched by the kindness of others and I hope to be able to do the same
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I just finished a whopping 30 sessions of radiation and the radiologist upon check-up said my skin is actually faring better than most, and despite and hour drive there and an hour back I did not get fatigued. So happy to share what worked for me!
1. This site is amazing and I found a lot of tips through this site, and joined a “radiation starting in Nov" thread that was super helpful for support along the way, and feeling not alone in this.
2. 100% pure aloe vera gel (I used Fruit of the Earth) morning and night!
3. Miaderm - invented by radiologists - which I applied immediately after treatment when I would go change back into my normal clothes.
4. Listened to audio books, called friends, scheduled necessary work calls or listened to music to make the long drive over and back seem quicker.
5. Stayed hydrated! Brought a bottle of water with me to treatment, had my fruit juice or sparkling water drinks on the drive over and back too.
6. Got to bring my little ESA support dog Domino to treatment with my every day - I just asked in the first week if that was allowed and they said as long as I had the paperwork, yes! She became famous there. During actual treatment she sat with the radiation therapists outside the room, but was with me on the drive to and fro and in the waiting room and set up and changing rooms. And is a possible reason I didn't feel fatigued. If you have a qualified support dog, I think it doesn't hurt to ask, made such a difference for me!
7. I still took hot showers. Honestly that helped with the itching
Here is Domino at the hospital with me:
All that said, I didn't skate through this with no side effects at all. I got a blister where my bra rubbed the underside of my breast and a couple radiation scratches (burns?) where I did not apply the lotions because I didn't know they were treating that area. So lessons learned. Also I know I'm not out of the woods yet and was told to keep applying the special lotions for the next 2 weeks, and I've just added Aquaphor to the after care routine.
Hopefully this pic is allowed so you can see my skin, which is mostly just tanned and hopefully gives others some encouragement that it's possible to get through this with little to no side effects! And if you get SE's the RO said it generally heals 4-6 weeks post treatment so there's a light at the end of the tunnel.
Looks all shiny due to aloe vera - this is after 30 sessions of rads. Right breast (left side in this pic) is the treared one, compared to the other non treated breast. Skin is more 'leathery' and you can see the veins more on the treated side, but all in all not bad and not burnt. Hoping the texture heals more and morewith lotioning and time.
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Hello and happy holidays to all,
I was supposed to start radiation on 12/6. Due to a few suture abscesses I had to delay. Of course they were only on the affected breast. I am now hoping to start after the new year. Has anyone had abscesses? How did your breast react to the treatment?
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Radiation was a breeze. Nothing to stress over. I had six weeks post DCIS lumpectomy. Went to work everyday, never had a minute of fatigue. Felt great actually. A few suggestions - drink a large Smart Water every morning before anything else. Keep drinking water throughout the day. Fatigue more often than not is caused by dehydration so stay in top of that. Use moisturizer everyday once you start. I used Udderly Smooth, not greasy soaked right in after my radiation so I could get dressed. Natural no perfume. It really does keep side effects away. Forget your bra - Get a thin comfortable stretchy cami you can wear under clothes, nothing that rubs under the breast. I found mine on Amazon and they worked perfectly. Mine were Nikibiki I got in nude, white and black. Went under everything. Provided support but didn’t rub my skin. You’re going to just fine. Radiation is easy
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I'm only a third of the way through rads and am having some unusual symptoms. Right breast rads and my hand and arms feel like they are on fire along with itching all over my body. Have already developed a cough and feels like the radiation goes through my back. Although I'm told by my RO that it isn't. My breast is fine, just a little pink and some minor discomfort around the lumpectomy incision. I can't find anything on why my hands and arms might feel like they are burning and I didn't expect my lung to be affected so soon. Eight sessions done out of 24, the last 4 being boosts. Can't imagine if my lung gets worst. And the burning sensation I'm hoping is not a nerve.
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I just had my first blast of radiation yesterday and am scheduled for 20 more. I have a team caring for me that I trust and it makes it so much easier to endure. It was so quick and I didn't have any discomfort. My breast is quite red but was already red on the opposite side of the surgical site that developed out of nowhere 4 weeks after my lumpectomy. I initially panicked from what I read on Google but have been reassured by my Drs and care team and am now trusting them. Wish all the very best of outcomes. May we find strength, courage, hope and support in ourselves and each other with the experience of having Breast Cancer.
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hello all the radiation was least of my anxiety also I lay there and speak positive things in my mind like I will get thru all of this with my faith also. The side effects of burns skin becoming darker bottom of hands and feet was nothing compare to believing I will get thru this all. Hope and more Hope helped me. msphil 25yr Survivor Praise God. idc stage2 0/3 nodes 3mo chemo before and after Lmast then got married was preparing when diagnosed. Then 7wks rads and 5yrs on Tamoxifen.
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Hi Toad,
Are you still receiving messages in this group?
Just felt like telling you that I love your drawing. It immediately inspired me to take my pencils and drawing paper with me to treatments/waiting rooms etc. (in the second half of chemo right now).
Thanks for sharing!
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