First day of radiotherapy today. All in all, not very exciting.
A normal session of radiotherapy should take around 15 minutes, however as today was my first it took considerably longer than that.
There was an issue with the initial measurements on my mask from the previous planning session, so the first step after getting strapped into my mask was recalculations – what they were recalculating I don’t know exactly. I left that up to them.
Because they are targeting my upper chest, which is in close vicinity to my heart – X-rays were taken to ensure that they really did have my body in the right place.
Once the X-rays confirmed the position was good the button was pressed and the machine did its thing. Only took around a minute for the actual ‘radiotherapy’ to be administered.
Much easier than getting a Chemotherapy administration! And only 14 more to go, too easy?!
After the radiotherapy I met with a Radiotherapy Nurse who took my blood pressure, temperature, and asked me general health questions. Then she went over the most common side effects i’ll experience which are mainly sore/dry throat and fatigue – both of which will most likely get worse as time goes on. Also worth noting is that the side effects can remain for 4-6 weeks after the last Radiotherapy treatment. So even though my radiotherapy finishes on the 6th January 2012, I may not feel ‘normal’ until late Feburary. I also got some more mouth wash (same as I used during Chemo) and some cream (Sorbolene) which I need to apply twice daily to my upper chest and neck.