Susan,
It is good to hear that you are doing so well! When did you finish your treatment?

So far I have been doing well. My chemo weekends are the worst for me. My radiation treatment is starting to kick in with reddened skin now. I am still eating meals and have no pain to speak of.

Everyone tells me radiation is culmulative and you feel the worst afterwards. Something to look forward to!

I know it will be hard for me to jump into school end of March. I've been gone so long. It is contest season & I left stuff for them to rehearse, so we will see. Also my middle school 7-8th are working on a musical. Again we'll see. Kids don't cut you the slack adults will. In fact, after 15 minutes they'll expect you to be 100 per cent.

I'd like to go part time next year. I doubt that I will be able to resume all 5 days all day at school this year right away also.

Anne

Gotta crawl before you can walk so listen to your body and don't over do it. This healing can and most likely will take all of 2 years with a ton of stuff going on in the back ground so to speak and without your knowledge or approval I might add.

Anne, if you're doing RT and chemo now my feeling is that you'd have to be a superwoman indeed to get back to work this semester. David is exactly correct. I personally wasn't ready to work for a full 6 months after the end of RT... and I didn't even have chemo.

Take it easy. Let your body heal. Let other people do things for YOU for a change. That way you'll be more ready in the fall.

How long till the end of RT?

d2

Hi,
Thanks for your comments, which have validity. I finish RT/Chemo Feb 25, thus 9 more days of treatments. I am feeling definitely "more rotten" at present. Everything tastes bad or metallic or both. My skin is very red now. I have more swelling. Still not too many sores. Very tired. Hope that any left over bad cells don't like it either.

Um, I think I have had the reputation for being a superwoman at work because my job is/was a hard one. This cannot be explained in a few words, so you'll just have to trust me on that one. In reality it is just because I keep on 'truckin, rather than having any special powers. Having said that, my health (and my family) will come before my job. If I can help my kids at school with contest on my terms, great, but I realize I cannot go at it like I would have to do in the past. I do have a great boss (superintendant)so I think he'll be understanding.

Let you know how the rest of it goes.
Anne

All my employees used to call me "Plastic Man" because I could work 24 hrs, get run over by a train and still bounce back up and work some more. Nothing seemed to phase me...until this Tx of course. Very barbaric is a mild way that I describe it. The healing takes far far longer than we would like but you just have to go w/ the flow.

I didn't realized you hadn't even finished Tx yet. Listen be very prepared as for a great many of us the few weeks POST Tx were our worse. Let's hope that's not the case for you but just in case you don't start feeling better after the rad ends, don't think it's unusual cause it's actually very usual.

Hang in there! I'm sure you have a lot of friends and family that love you, and keep you in their thoughts and prayers. I have a 26 year old daughter with squarmous cell carcinoma Stage 1. And I struggle with how to help her. So every night at the same time I have prayer time with my daughter at 8:30pm est. I will say a prayer for you too. God Bless you.

3910

Hi,
This is an update for me. I have 8 more radiation and 2 more chemo so am getting close to the end. I have done fairly well on things.

Last week my regular RO was gone so I saw another RO. I had noticed some pain in my neck, so asked about it, and to my surprise he found a small lymph node, BB sized, in my that area. However, I did not think there was pain from that spot. They made an ultrasound appointment for me which was today. Meanwhile, I could not find that lymph node over last weekend or into this week. My regular RO was back and he could not find it either, but said the thing to do was to do the ultrasound anyway, because someone did find something (I did feel it myself that day at my last week's appointment). The ultrasound showed a small lymph node in that area that was too small to be felt, so this was a relief, even though I'd been told not to stress by both of the RO's, mine and the substitute. The other areas they looked at were also normal. So that was excitement I could have skipped. I have noticed that my mask seems to fit much tighter than early on, and I have pains on both sides of neck and down on top of my clavicle bones, not related to skin sunburn, hours afterwards. I don't know what to do about this except to endure it.

My chemo last weekend was not pleasant, just felt bad in general, also felt more fatigue. As I related in an earlier post, my taste registers mostly metallic, with the exception of chocolate (did not used to be my favorite). I do not have a feeding tube as I am eating food, though I did drop a couple of pounds, probably partly because of my lousy weekend.

I did go to Laughter Yoga today, which is terrific. If anyone gets a chance to do this, I recommend it.

Anne

Sounds like you are doing well - I know that is doesn't sound like it or feel like it - but everything is relevant - you are still able to eat - and though tired - able to do yoga etc... So these are all pluses. Women in particular are notorious for pushing themselves to do more, feel better, etc.. You Are doing what you have to - you are almost at the end, that's fantastic. Best of luck to you and many blessings - it hasn't been easy for you but in time - hopefully it all will fade.

hi my name is gerry my husband is taking radition 12 today he has blisters now stared magic mouthwash sunday dr said to early to get blister how long was you on radition till you got blisters thanks gerry taking radition in his mouth ,had a very big tumor cancer cells are still around the nerve

Gerry - I recommend you start your own thread for this. Radiation blisters are very very common. I think mine began during the second week and continued until a good month after treatment ended.

Please give us more info on your husband's situation, ok?

And hang in there!

One of your new friends,
David 2