Earlier last week we met with the radiation oncologist and went over the treatment. Karen identified three painful spots for the doctor. Only one of these can be treated in one shot. One of the other spots might be too close to the small intestines to treat all in one go, the other is certainly too close. He would feel better treating those spots over a 3 week period. Using the scans taken during the simulation, the doctor will work with a physicist to develop a plan that will shrink these tumors. While he plans on developing a 5 day a week, 3 week long treatment schedule, he still plans to treat one of the spots all in one go on the first day. This could reduce the amount of setup and adjusting they would have to do each treatment for the remainder of the treatment.
We were told that with radiation treatment, only 80% of patients have reduced pain. So one in five people will have as much or more pain than before. We were also warned that the cancer may swell up and have a reaction as it is dying - as any irritated part of your body would. So there may be a period of time where the pain is actually worse. There will also likely be a sunburn‑like irritation to the skin around the areas they treat, but it's not suppose to be worse than an actual sunburn. The other common side effect is fatigue. Fatigue is the one thing we've been seeing the most consistently, even when we're not on treatments. The fatigue seems to be a symptom of the cancer itself, so anything that causes more fatigue can really keep Karen down. There's also a chance of diarrhea, but we aren't too concerned with that since the pain meds tend to cause constipation. We'll have to wait to see how much the fatigue affects her, but overall it doesn't sound anywhere near as bad as any of the other treatments we've had so far. We were told it will likely take 5 to 10 treatments before start to notice any side effects.
The radiation simulation was Friday. They made a mold for her to lay in so that they can get her in the same position each time. They also gave her 3 tiny tattoos that they can use to help align the machines each time. When she points them out to you, you can see them, otherwise they are pretty much unnoticeable. Laying still for so long did get painful for her, but they assured us this was much longer than she would normally be laying there. The reason the simulation takes so long is because they are taking CT scans to use when planning out the treatment.
