An update

Some of you may be wondering what’s up with me, and I don’t want to leave you in suspense – though the answer is that not much is actually going on.

It’s now three weeks since my radiation treatment ended. In about a month I’ll have a CT scan and a PET scan, and then they’ll know what the treatment has accomplished. Why the delay? I believe I’m in the process of waiting for my liver to settle down enough from the impact of the treatment so that the doctors can tell what’s really going on. In the meantime, again, nothing very dramatic is happening.

One thing that is interesting is that I’m still having side-effects. “Still” isn’t quite the right word; I think my side effects – though pretty modest – have increased over the weeks since the end of the treatment. This doesn’t seem to be unexpected. Radiation is a blow to the body, and its effects, and the body’s reaction to them, apparently quite often only emerge over time. Probably my side effects were also somewhat increased by the chemotherapy I had every day along with the radiation; if so, that too should tail off since the chemotherapy ended the same day as the radiation did.

So I’m more tired than I used to be, and more prone to getting out of breath; all of this is fatigue, evidently, and according to the patient education brochure MSK gave us when this began, fatigue “can last for several months.” I also have a patch of irritated and itchy skin on my back. I never did quite figure out whether the radiation was all going into me from my stomach side, or whether as the machine’s components whirled around me it was giving me doses of radiation from underneath, through my back, as well. Either way, something about this process has disagreed with my back. Skin issues, MSK told us, “often take… 3 to 4 weeks” to resolve. And my bloodwork is off in various ways, most clearly with respect to my platelets, which promote blood clotting. Mine are well below normal. That means I bruise easily, and as a result I have various purple spots here and there; my body is more colorful than usual! Meanwhile, of course, one should never forget one’s bowel regimen; mine continues.

All that said, I’m basically fine. I’m receiving no treatment right now (except a steroid via my pump, since my liver seems to appreciate a steroid infusion), It’s a little surprising not to be getting treatment, but it will be great if it turns out that I don’t need any treatment for some time to come.