I am radiant!

Finishing up my week of radiation :)

Hi everyone,

Another little update in my breast cancer journey! I will get back to normal posts, but right now I guess I’m on ‘sick leave’ :) Last week I had my radiation treatment. Paul and I travelled 2.5 hours to Palmerston North, where we stayed Monday to Friday, and I had a treatment each day. They are short appointments, but we don’t have the big fancy machine required in Hawke’s Bay.

I’ll show you further down in the post, but in my first photo above and below, Paul and I went to the pub! Tuesday was St Patrick’s Day, so to celebrate we went to a local Irish bar for a drink. I had a cider, but totally would have had a Kilkenny if I wasn’t celiac gluten-free. And Paul had a Guinness, of course!

It was nuts in there and it was only 4.30pm! We were like the sober parents watching on with amusement. When we left Paul said ‘I don’t think it’s a place for couples’, which is so true. Not the sort of place you would go to on a romantic date or for quiet conversation. We couldn’t even hear each other speak with the band playing.

But it was fun to go, and to have one for St Patrick’s Day. I am 12% Irish after all :) And I’d even brought along a green blouse for my trip too. I’d like to say that was intentional… but it was intentional that I wore it on Tuesday.

The rest of our week was far more relaxing and quiet. We stayed in a beautiful residence at Ozanam House, which is a huge facility set up for people receiving cancer care. It’s far nicer and more home-like than a hotel, and is completely free, funded by donations to the Cancer Society of New Zealand.

We stayed in a three-bedroom home on the site, but some are much bigger, with 11 and 19 bedrooms. Each room has an ensuite bathroom, and the kitchen, living area and laundry is shared. In the kitchen everyone has their own mini-fridge and cupboard. A housekeeper visits daily.

It was such a nice place to stay, and we were so grateful for it.

And shall I show you where I went each day? I was allowed to have some photos taken, because why not. We went to the morning tea at Ozanam House on Wednesday and one of the other ladies receiving treatment told me they’d taken a photo of her in the machine, and I thought ‘I want a photo in the machine too!’

It’s a very impressive machine. I did some geeky researching and one of these costs about $3-$5 million US, and you also need to build a reinforced concrete room to house it, which is another couple of million. The walls have to be 1-3 metres/yards thick to keep all the beams contained so that no-one is affected outside the room, especially the staff who are there all the time.

Apparently it’s similar rays to an X-ray, but while X-rays are thousands of rays delivered for fractions of a second, Radiation beams are millions of rays for fractions of a minute. Let that sink in! With my cancer being on the left side, I had to take deep breaths and hold them for up to 20 seconds to protect my lung and heart. I know, scary, but the machine has millimetre accuracy and so even a deep breath can move the area to be radiated safely away from vital organs.

Of course, I had surgery before this and am cancer-free now so this is all preventative, to zap tiny cancer cells that still might be floating around my breast. I feel lucky that I only had to have one week in total. Many others have four weeks of treatment, and some up to 5, 6 or 7 weeks, five times a week, Monday to Friday.

So yes, it was a big week, even if ‘only’ one.

And I took a video walking in (the radiation oncology therapist let me). Let’s go through the double doors first, with the scary nuclear symbol on it…

I went through the left door to Rehua, which is my machine’s name. Cute! All four machines have Maori names. And here we go :)

I took the video on my last day, and Paul was allowed to come in to take a look at the machine too. He left the room before we started :) I love the ‘Beam on - ionising radiation’ red sign, like something out of a movie!

Each appointment was only half an hour out of our day, so for the three days in the middle of the week when we weren’t travelling to and from Palmerston North, we looked around, went for a drive out of town one of the days, and rested ‘at home’ on the others.

I found a completely gluten-free cafe called Munch which did breakfasts and lunches and we went there three times. It was so delicious! And a real find for someone celiac like myself. Would recommend!

I did some lovely shopping too, the floral trousers already pictured, and a pair of black pleather trousers for winter, from a favourite shop called Blue Illusion (an Australian brand which has a store in Palmerston North), and a pair of knit shoes a bit like Vivaia or Rothys, neither of which we can get here. These ones are by a brand called Los Cabos. They are pictured with my relaxing satin trousers so they don’t really go! But I haven’t worn them properly yet :)

So that was my radiation week! I’m glad to have it behind me, and fingers crossed plus touch wood that’s all the big things done. Now I can just settle in and keep healing, and taking my five-year Letrozole hormone therapy pill each night. While I was in Palmerston North walking to the hospital each day (Ozanam House is close), I decided that the radiation treatment was making me radiant from the inside out, and that all my cells would be enhanced. I am now a new person, haha! Fresh and revitalised :)

It’s nice to be back into my normal routine at home, even if I still have medical appointments - three this week alone! I’m enjoying writing too, reading lots, and spending time with our three doggies and cat. They all missed us! The doggies stayed with my mum, and our lovely neighbour Barry visited Nina cat each day twice a day for meals and sent cute photos and texts ‘from’ Nina’. Adorable :) He was late leaving work one day and didn’t get to our place until 6.30pm. He told me Nina was waiting in the kitchen just about tapping her watch!

I hope you’re doing well too, I know it’s a scary time in the world at the moment, and petrol is crazy. But we all just have to keep on keeping on.

Big hugs to you, Fiona x