Week 1 - Disco Day 3

10%! I am 10% of the way through my radiotherapy journey. It has become a little easier each day to get into the mask and not have a massive panic attack. It seems to be better when they continue to talk to me throughout. Yesterday, they put the mask on, then off they went to the little room, leaving me for what felt like an hour (that was actually probably only 30 seconds) without speaking to me. The problem with being bolted down to a metal table in a solid thick plastic mask with no contact with a person for more than 30 seconds is that you can’t help but panic that something has gone wrong - somebody has maybe had a heart attack, or there’s a fire, and they’re all suddenly busy worrying about getting help for the person who is dying or getting out of the building, and in the meantime they’ve left me bolted to the cold metal table all by myself. Clearly, I’ve been watching too many disaster movies, because in reality all it would take would be for them to find a funny cat video on YouTube and they would all be suitably distracted while I’m bolted to the metal. I have to say it’s quite amazing what goes through your brain during these moments of being restrained. The mind can really come up with some fantastical ideas. Maybe this is where my novel will finally be born?

I saw the oncologist today, as well as the dietician and the speech and language therapist. They weighed me so that they can make sure I don’t lose too much weight throughout treatment. The looming threat of the dreaded stomach tube weighs heavy on my mind - I am going to try to avoid it at all costs, even if it means pushing soggy toast down my throat in great agony. A new friend I have made who is also going through the same treatment said that by the time she got to week 3, she was pretty much living on McDonalds cheeseburgers and Capri Suns, as everything else tasted disgusting. Not ideal I know, but a few Golden Arches would be significantly better than a feeding tube in my stomach.

I have been given some gel to apply to my throat and neck to help minimise radiation burns to my skin. On the first night, I wasn’t entirely sure where I was meant to apply the gel – should it go just to my tonsil area near my ear, or all over my neck? One side or two? Today, I asked the oncologist about the levels of radiation going to different parts of my head and neck to guide me. I had originally asked the radiographer, who had told me it was about 60% on the right side and 40% on the left. This didn’t seem to be very right-side focused to me, which is why asked my oncologist instead. She said it was more like 20% - 30% on the left side, which sounds much better because I am hoping to be able to still eat with that level of pain on the left side. We also talked about swallowing exercises that I need to do every day, multiple times a day, to keep my neck jaw and throat from seizing up due to the treatment.

The car journey home was a struggle yes again. I really do need to find a way to overcome the travel sickness otherwise it’s going to end up being worse than the radiation itself. It didn’t help that my driver spoke to me the whole way home, chatting and wanting to know how I noticed I had cancer etc. I would point him in the direction of this blog so I don’t have to keep updating him every day but then he’ll read that I said he’s annoying - #awkward.

When I got home yesterday, all I wanted to do was collapse on the sofa but, as the girls are still off school, my afternoon didn’t remotely resemble a sofa afternoon. Luckily S had a friend over and they had decided to cook us dinner – result! The downside was that they decided to make pasta from scratch so the kitchen looked as though somebody had exploded a flour bomb in the centre of it, and they were bits of pasta hanging up in all sorts of places. Music was blaring the whole afternoon. Mum had also come to visit, which was lovely. Both girls had dental appointments in the afternoon. It was lovely to see my dentist again because the last time I saw her was when she took a photo of my tumour and sent it to Swindon for analysis, kick starting this entire journey, so I am eternally grateful for her help in that regard. Dinner was delicious, and mum and I had a small drop of champagne each. I figured I might as well enjoy the good stuff while I still can, as it will be a while before any champagne passes my lips again.

Now I have two blissful days off radiotherapy before going back again on Monday. I’m somewhat dreading next week as it’s my first full five-day treatment week (I only did three this week). I’m hoping that will be someone uneventful rather like this week and that any side-effects that I do have won’t start until closer to week three or four. In the meantime, I’m trying to keep active, taking the dog out for a walk, taking the girls to their hair appointments, and I’m hoping for Friday night on the sofa. The trickiest thing currently seems to be finding the balance between taking time to process the reality of what is actually happening to me and just keeping busy, so that I don’t have too much time to think about it.