I am two treatments shy of being done with radiation. Last week the machine broke down and they had to cancel two days of treatment. My neck is extremely red, raw and sore and my plan is to tell the doctor that we probably don't need the last two treatments. My neck is actually bleeding at night and weeping during the day. Nothing seems to make it feel much better. There are blisters in my mouth and it even hurts to drink water. Then there is the darn mucous and all of the fun associated with choking on it.

Surely 27 treatments is enough??

Patty

Patty

Good to hear that the treatments are just about over and done with. I know what you mean about the mucous it nearly drove me insane, especially of a night I was like you nearly choking on it.

My neck was rather burnt and sore but certainly not as bad as your neck sounds.

I'm 99.9% sure that your doctor won't agree that it is OK to cancel your last couple of radiotherapy treatments, I would be surprised if he did. Others may have a different opinion though.


Karen

Yes -you need to complete your treatment protocol. My tumor had totally vanished at 3 weeks but I had to complete my last three weeks anyway. The side effects you are having are typical and will continue for some time even after you are done with treatment. This is especially important since it is a recurrence. Ask the doctors for some meds to ease the pain and other side effects you arer having. I missed a few days due to machine downtime and once because I was too ill. They will add more days to compensate for it. You must receive all of the Greys of radiation that you were prescribed.

You must finish radiation. You only get one shot at it in most cases so dont let your current side effects interfere with your scheduled treatment.

Its the worst time of treatments, the last week and first 2 or 3 immediately following treatments. Please hang in there and in a couple weeks you will begin to feel better. It really will get better soon.

Yes...finish the treatments...Just two more...Why stop now?

This is the advice we received from Dana-Faber team consult: "It is critical to complete all rad treatments."

They even went on to say: If anyone suggests or agrees to cutting back your tx, call us.

Good1
it's ten days since your original post and inquiring minds want to know if you took your final 2 radiations. The bleeding neck and oozing dead skin sticking to gauze on the neck sounds very familiar to me. It's not too late to get some relief. The only thing that worked for me at the end was Vigilon which is a hydrogel dressing. Turns our you do not even need a prescription, just buy it from any medical supply store (i used our local yellow pages, first time in years instead of the internet). Here is techie info on Vigilon and two similar items.

Hydrogel dressings are cross-linked polymer gels that are often shaped into sheets to provide and maintain a moist wound environment. By increasing moisture content, hydrogels have the ability to help cleans and debride necrotic tissue. Hydrogels are non-adherent and can be removed without trauma to the wound. Additionally, hydrogel dressing have a soothing effect that promotes patient acceptance. It�s important to keep in mind though that hydrogel dressings are not very absorptive, and therefore may not be the appropriate choice for moderate to highly exudating wounds. Hydrogel dressings often require secondary dressings for this reason. Hydrogel dressings can be shaped into gauze, sheets, or filler material.

Three vendors who offer hydrogel dressing material are 3M�, who offers the 3M Tegagel� Hydrogel Wound Filler and the 3M Tegagel Hydrogel Wound Filler with Gauze, Bard Medical, who offers the Vigilon Primary Wound Dressing, and Smith and Nephew, who offers the FlexiGel Strands� Absorbent Wound Dressing.

I might add also that my MO stated to me that the prognosis for survival of patients not completing their treatment protocol is significantly lower. That motivated me to crawl on my belly into radiation oncology every day...

Patty,

Stand back and read your own Signature Line as if it were someone else's. With that kind of history and time line would you tell someone they should cut their radiation treatment short?

That answer is obvious, don't you agree!!

Also whether or not you finish the few remaining rads, the next several weeks post Tx will most likely be worse than anything you have experienced to date so don't think by stopping everything will be OK.

Dunno about anyone else, but my radiation treatment plan was not just seven weeks of the same thing, but a series of different things, some of which were in the last few days. Not finishing the plan wouldn't have meant just two days in my case, it would have meant only getting half of one of the mini-plans.