Six long weeks, and more on hair

Hair re-growth post-chemotherapy:

Now about 10 weeks (2.5 months) after my last infusion, or almost two months after the end of my last cycle (still getting herceptin for several more months). I hit a big milestone-- I can now put a bow in my hair!

Radiation Side Effects

Yesterday, after six and a half groundhog day-esque weeks, I put radiation behind me. All in all, radiation was a good deal easier than chemotherapy.  I can tell that my body is recovering because my exercise tolerance is way up while my need for sleep is way down.

Locally, my skin held up pretty well. I had a burn for about one week in my axilla (this has now resolved-- the axilla only got 23 doses whereas the breast got 25, plus a 5-treatment boost to the lumpectomy site, for a total of 30). I have some skin breakdown around the surgical incision line, primarily because I have a skin fold there, and radiation gets amplified in folds. My cording (also known as axillary web syndrome) flared during the nodal radiation, but has improved significantly with physical therapy. All in all, not too bad.

Radiation Creams

Throughout the treatment I moisturized the area at least twice every day with one of four creams: aquaphor, California Baby calendula cream, Jean's cream, and MyGirls cream. Early on (and overall), I found that MyGirls cream was by far the best (I used it almost exclusively for the first five weeks or so). The aquaphor and the California baby were useful once I started to get some skin breakdown and a burn to mix with lidocaine gel for local relief (MyGirls cream was really too light for this purpose). I did not find the Jean's cream to be particularly good for anything, and so abandoned its use pretty early on.

Radiation: Half way home

As I mentioned in my previous post, I opted for the aggressive radiation regimen, based on the results of the MA-20 trial, and two others, which demonstrated a disease-free survival benefit in patients with early-stage breast cancer and clinically-positive nodes. Whether or not nodal radiation is needed in patients with micro-metastatic disease only is unclear, however, given my age and grade of my disease, as well as the low-risk of additional toxicity from treatments, I felt that the potential benefits outweighed the harms.

The worst part of radiation thus far has been the first day, when I was on the very hard and very cold plastic table for nearly two hours. I am unfortunately positioned on my left shoulder blade, so my left shoulder was quite irritated after two hours of pressure and not moving. Since then, it has been relatively smooth sailing (although I am getting really tired of getting weighed so often. Is it really necessary to weigh me more than once weekly? It's enough to drive someone crazy!)

I am now 15 treatments in (out of a total of 30, including the 5 for the post-lumpectomy boost) and overall feeling very well. My shoulder is getting tight again due to the resurgence of some cording (also called axillary web syndrome) so I am back seeing physical therapy, and that is helping a lot. I am not experiencing too much fatigue (and none compared to chemotherapy) and my skin is still doing pretty well- I have a little bit of a tan, but no burn or anything like that at this point.

My hair has grown back considerably (I actually feel like I woke up one morning with full coverage). My best guess at this point is that it is a good deal darker than my hair pre-chemo, but we will see how it fills out. I am working on my husband for a six-weeks post chemo picture.