Radiate Positivity

Happy Sunday y’all! We survived the first week of January. I survived the attempted coup, my first week of radiation and my breast biopsy came back negative! Woo!

I had my first two radiation treatments this week at the Perelman Center at Penn Medicine in Philadelphia. My treatments occur in the Roberts Proton Therapy Center.

I had an amazing experience as my team is great! I’m receiving proton radiation verses linac as it has less harmful side effects. Due to my age and location of the tumor, it was the best decision per my physicians.

My insurance even saw the benefits of this treatment and approved it right away.

Due to my age and the type of meningioma I have, it had a 100% chance of reoccurrence before radiation and still a high chance after.

However, I’ll just have to be on top of it for the rest of my life (yay!).

I’ll be getting treatments Monday through Friday for 7 weeks. I may need more radiation right after or three months after the treatment has ended, we shall see. 31 treatments left (as of now).

First Week Summary

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Day one. It was a night appointment so all day I was low key stressed. How was it going to go? Was I going to get along with my team?

To answer those questions now, it went great and I do get along with my team!

Treatments. The table moves during the treatment to get the beam to hit the exact area needed. Also, my brain sees lights that do not exist during the treatment due to the radioactivity (really funky but cool).

I feel a hot sensation and I smell a burning metal smell. This again is all in my head as the beam is not seen and does not transmit light and or heat.

My face is locked into a tight mask, hence the marks. My eyes are closed the entire time and I can barely open my mouth. It has holes in it so I can breath. It’s a plastic, mesh type mask.

Nausea. Friday, day two, I was so sick in my stomach all day after treatment. I could not eat dinner at all. I had some nice crackers in bed.

Fatigue. Wow; I though I was tired before from the craniotomy but radiation fatigue is more extreme. I’ve been sleeping more than before.

Headaches. I haven’t needed Tylenol until radiation started. The headaches have returned.

Pain. My scalp hurts to touch after treatments. It’s sore.

To get through this I remember I need this to be better. I need this to stop a future tumor from growing back large or at all. I’m thankful I made it this far.

If the tumor was still unfound, I would have a lot worse consequences than I do now.

Put your health first.

As always, be bold.

#beccasjourney #bebold #meningioma #meningiomawarrior #radiation