Friday I finished my 26th radiation treatment - six more to go! I'm two treatments behind because of the equipment breakdown August 22-23, so I'm now not scheduled to finish all 32 treatments until September 13th.
My arm is now starting to show the effects of the radiation. Last weekend I noticed that it was starting to look slightly red and now, a week (5 treatments) later, it's quite red and starting to get a bit swollen. Redness, swelling, and skin thickening (yuck! Sorry if this is too much info) are all to be expected, and I'm lucky that they haven't gotten bad until now. And, really, they're not too bad, but I have a feeling that every one of these last six treatments will make a difference...
As for the other expected side effect, fatigue, it hasn't been much of an issue so far. In fact, I'm feeling great. I've been trying to run regularly, and this week I had my best run I'd for a long time. A lot of my recent struggles with running have more to do with taking way too much time off than with the radiation. I've also gotten back on my bike - Friday I rode 35 miles, and yesterday I rode 27. Next weekend I'm planning to ride at least 50 miles in Door County, Wisconsin.
I'm also back at work, as of August 25th. My manager found work for me that didn't require travel, so I started back as soon as I was able to get a return to work letter from my doc. My job is home-based, and this project is very flexible so that I can work on it on my own schedule. It's nice to be back to work - and back to a full paycheck - but I need to relearn how to balance my time!
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