Am I glowing or is it the radiation?
If I’m being completely honest, I didn’t want to do this part. Once I got my “all clear” after surgery and my post op scans, I really didn’t want to spend every day doing radiation. What a weird prescription:
About 25-30 mins a day
Every SINGLE week day
FOR 28 TREATMENTS….
NO THANK YOU!
So I went into my first radiation consultation with my doctor at Juravinski and politely told him NO. My medical oncologist was confident the chemo got it all, my surgeon was confident she got it all, I got great scans claiming there was no evidence of disease and I was SOOOOO freaking burnt out from medical appointments.
I told him that I honestly didn’t have it in me to spend 3-4 hours a day driving back and forth to Hamilton everyday while trying to restart my career, raise my kids and get my life back. And if it was just to prevent me from getting it in my 70’s, I’d worry about it then.
If you know me well, you know that backing down or procrastinating something important like this IS NOT MY USUAL M.O. but I was sooooo freaking tired of doctors.
But this doctor did something different.
While I sat in his office crying about how I just didn’t have it in me anymore, he laid out some statistics.
Without radiation, the chances of my metaplastic breast cancer adapting and coming back sometime in my lifetime was about 40%.
With radiation, that number would drop to about 10%.
Now, where this really matters, is my age. I am 33 years old, I’m maybe less than a third through my life. That 40% is most likely a LOT higher since that stat is based on the average breast cancer survivor being between 60-80. I have a ton of time left that this stupid disease could decide to sneak back in.
However, that still didn’t help my absolute exhaustion and my genuine concerns for time, energy and the sheer cost of gas and parking for daily treks to Hamilton. So he asked me three questions:
“If I could get your radiation done 15 minutes from home, would you go there?”
“If I booked all your appointments in the afternoon so you could get a full work day in, would you go everyday?”
“If the parking was cheap, would you be able to make that happen?”
How do you say no to your healthcare when they remove all the barriers?
Grand River Cancer Center in Kitchener
He moved my care to a radiation oncologist at Grand River in Kitchener, 15 minutes from my work. He had them schedule all my appointments for after 3pm, so I could more often than not, work a full day and still pick up my baby from daycare. He made sure they gave me a parking slip, so my parking for the 6 weeks was a whopping $45. This is what accessible care looks like.
I’ve now completed 15/28 radiation treatments. I spend every afternoon topless on a table while they microwave my tits, but the people are lovely, the hospital is super understanding and I am genuinely grateful that I can reduce my chances of dealing with this shit again by a whopping 30%.
Radiation does come with some side effects, luckily so far, they’re limited to a sunburnt armpit and a desperate need for more naps. My skin is handling it well, my energy is still pretty good and I’m just really excited to finish this last bit of active treatment!
