One week post radiation, two months post chemo.

It's been a week since finishing radiation and I've been, well, tired! I've had a persistent cold for about three weeks now (thank you chemo and radiation) and have been pretty worn out. I've also been dealing with the slightly unpleasant aftermath of Radiation for the last five days. 

I was very lucky that I had hardly any reaction to the radiation while I was going through treatment. I looked a little sunburnt in some spots but that was pretty much it. Two days before finishing, the nurse gave me a stronger cream to use under my arm as the skin was going quite dark and she thought it might break. I was happy to make it through my remaining sessions without this happening but sure enough, I started peeling the afternoon of my last treatment. Over a week later my whole underarm is still peeling and raw. I went back to the hospital on Monday to have the nurse look at it and she gave me an even stronger cream and special gauze to use, but it hasn't seemed to improve so far. On the plus side though, I think my mastectomy scar is looking flatter and less noticeable since finishing radiation. At the end of this post I have included some progress photos so look away if you don't want to see my lopsided chest and scar. As usual I have a photo of little birdie as a buffer just in case. 

So, after having radiation every weekday for five weeks, it was nice to have almost a weeks break from visiting the hospital, but that is over now. Today I had my heart scan and tomorrow I see my oncologist and have my herceptin infusion. I was pretty nervous for my heart scan and wasn't expecting a very good result, so I was very please to find out my heart has pretty much gone back to normal since resuming my herceptin. Yippee! That means I should still be on track to finish treatment in April. 

Today also marks two months since finishing chemo, but I still have one lingering side effect. My finger nails are all bruised and lifting from my nail beds. I'm keeping them painted as much as possible so it's not too obvious. My right hand is the worst as all my nails have lifted to at least half way up my nail bed. One side effect that has stopped now is my hair loss, which I'm very happy about. Every day I can see more and more hair on my head, and I don't think it will be long till I can go out without some sort of headscarf/hat/beanie on. For now it's just a bit thin on top though. 

And now a slightly happier photo:

xxM