I'm done? How did that happen?

I woke up Tuesday morning October 5th and no longer had Chemo to look forward to. I didn't have to go to radiation. I just had to face an 8 am conference call. Piece of cake to go back to work, right? It would seem so, but I will steal a quote from a friend of mine who said she was "up to her eyeballs in alligators". I like to pretend that busy hands are happy hands, but sometimes there can be too much of a good thing. I'm not all made up of clichés however, and I am looking forward to settling into a "new normal". As I've said before it's going to still be a long haul before we know for sure if all the treatments worked, but I am glad to be on the other side of them.




One of my sisters came to visit and made it just in time to accompany me to my final radiation treatment. As you can see my hair is starting to grow back, for which I am very grateful.

waiting for my last radiation treatment (hopefully ever)

My fancy shmancy IMRT



Laser guided precision



219 zaps later and I was free to head home - hopefully to never see that machine again.

zap - 1, zap -2, zap 3....

It seems like a lot of people going through radiation for other types of cancer spend about 5 minutes with their machine. My treatment takes more like 20 minutes once they start zapping me. I mentioned before that I started counting the number of times I get zapped. It's hard to keep focused on counting for 20 minutes and your mind starts to wander, but sometimes you don't want to have your mind wander. You don't want to fixate on the fact that your foot itches, that there's a tickle in your nose, or that you feel like taking a deep breath and sighing - each of which would probably move you off your precise mark and screw the whole thing up! Nothing says hold still for 20 min like a little stress. So I have continued to try and count on a daily basis. They blast me a bunch of times and then the big machine rotates around to a new position to get a different angle. I've been able to memorize the sequence.

zap 1 zap 2 zap 3 zap 4 zap 5 zap 6 zap 7 zap 8 zap 9 zap 10 zap 11 zap 12 zap 13 zap 14 zap 15 zap 16 zap 17 zap 18 zap 19 zap 20 zap 21 zap 22 zap 23 zap 24 zap 25 zap 26 zap 27 switch zap 28 zap 29 zap 30 zap 31 zap 32 zap 33 zap 34 zap 35 zap 36 zap 37 zap 38 zap 39 zap 40 zap 41 zap 42 zap 43 zap 44 zap 45 zap 46 zap 47 zap 48 zap 49 zap 50 switch zap 51 zap 52 zap 53 zap 54 zap 55 zap 56 zap 57 zap 58 zap 59 zap 60 zap 61 zap 62 zap 63 zap 64 zap 65 zap 66 zap 67 zap 68 zap 69 zap 70 zap 71 switch zap 72 zap 73 zap 74 zap 75 zap 76 zap 77 zap 78 zap 79 zap 80 zap 81 zap 82 zap 83 zap 84 zap 85 zap 86 zap 87 zap 88 zap 89 zap 90 zap 91 zap 92 zap 93 zap 94 zap 95 zap 96 switch zap 97 zap 98 zap 99 zap 100 zap 101 zap 102 zap 103 zap 104 zap 105 zap 106 zap 107 zap 108 zap 109 zap 110 zap 111 zap 112 zap 113 zap 114 zap 115 zap 116 zap 117 zap 118 zap 119 zap 120 zap 121 switch zap 122 zap 123 zap 124 zap 125 zap 126 zap 127 zap 128 zap 129 zap 130 zap 131 zap 132 zap 133 zap 134 zap 135 zap 136 zap 137 zap 138 zap 139 zap 140 zap 141 zap 142 zap 143 switch zap 144 zap 145 zap 146 zap 147 zap 148 zap 149 zap 150 zap 151 zap 152 zap 153 zap 154 zap 155 zap 156 zap 157 zap 158 zap 159 zap 160 zap 161 zap 162 zap 163 zap 164 zap 165 zap 166 zap 167 zap 168 switch zap 169 zap 170 zap 171 zap 172 zap 173 zap 174 zap 175 zap 176 zap 177 zap 178 zap 179 zap 180 zap 181 zap 182 zap 183 zap 184 zap 185 zap 186 zap 187 zap 188 zap 189 zap 190 zap 191 switch zap 192 zap 193 zap 194 zap 195 zap 196 zap 197 zap 198 zap 199 zap 200 zap 201 zap 202 zap 203 zap 204 zap 205 zap 206 zap 207 zap 208 zap 209 zap 210 zap 211 zap 212 zap 213 zap 214 zap 215 zap 216 zap 217 zap 218 zap 219 done... 

And, with one more radiation treatment on Monday I truly will be DONE with treatment - hopefully forever! But life after treatment won't be quite normal for a while. I will still get to keep my port for a few extra months. My doctor wants me to keep it in for at least a year after I end treatment. So I guess all I want for xmas this year is to be cancer free, and all I'll want next year is to get the port out.... I am looking forward to that day already.