Celebrating Being DONE

This last Friday, March 22, was my final radiation treatment. I'm finally done with all the treatments! Yippee! 

Well, kind of. Now I'll be taking a hormone blocking medicine daily (Tamoxifin). Although 10% of people can't absorb it; if the blood work they did yesterday says I'm one of those people, I'll be taking another form of estrogen blocker that does the same thing. The purpose of the hormone blocker is to help reduce the risk of the cancer from coming back. It's my best defense at this point. The way my oncologist described it, he said to imagine that there is the smallest amount of cancer in my body right now (which very well could be zero), but just in case a cell wasn't removed during surgery, Tamoxifin works to block the hormones from fueling that cancer. The hopes are if there is anything left, by it being blocked, it will die off from lack of "food."

The Seippel crew celebrating my completion of treatments!

You may be wondering what that bell is. It's in the patient waiting room and according to the poem (below) you are supposed to ring it when you finish your treatments. And of course I had to ring it.

Ring this bell

Three times well

The toll to clearly say

My treatments are done

It's course has run

And I am on my way

Besides my skin getting fried and being a bit painful (it's now peeling thankfully), the only other side effect I have had was fatigue. I really only noticed it when I would try and do much of anything besides going to my appointments.

Like I mentioned in my last post, the last 5 treatments were called a boost where they just treated the incision area since that is where they often see cancer come back. I took a few pictures of my "plate" and the contraption that held it in place for you all.

The "plate" for my boost treatments

Here is the machine with the contraption that held that plate.