cancer patient diary - blog lymphoma patient

Section 154 Entry 0001. Date: 2005 July 19 Tuesday.
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And so today I came to the end of my radiation therapy, receiving fraction number twenty. For this final session, I went across the harbor from Devonport to Auckland by ferry, accompanied by my mother, then took the bus up to the hospital, which sits up on a ridge overlooking the harbor. My mother accompanied me downstairs to Treatment Room Six.

"It's like death row," said my mother. "Where they take you into the room and give you the lethal injection."

I had my doubts about the accuracy of this comparison. To the best of my knowledge, my mother has never been on death row. She has, however, read a John Grisham novel which touched on the subject of capital punishment.

I went alone into the depths of Treatment Room Six, where I received not a lethal injection but a sublethal dose of radiation.

"Do you want your mask, Hugh? As a souvenir?"

I did, so I walked out of Treatment Room Six holding it, a clear plastic mask, a kind of death mask for the living. White rather than black: appropriate for Darth Vader's evil albino twin.

After the treatment session, I had an appointment with my radiation oncologist, Dr. Gill Campbell, at which we talked about the future.

The end of radiation therapy is a kind of beginning. The territory of the unknown starts here: the cumulative effects of radiation go on making themselves felt after treatment ends, with, for example, marked fatigue being one standard possibility. And the loss of what's left of my hair being another.

What is known is that, as a consequence of the radiation delivered into the eyes, I can expect that in three to five years from now I will need an operation to remove cataracts from each eye. (All going well, the treatment of a cataract involves a fairly straightforward operation under local anesthetic, the damaged natural lens being removed and replaced by a permanent plastic lens.)

Additionally, to think further about the future, the irradiated area -- my forehead in particular -- is going to need to be protected from the sun by sunblock or a hat.

"Is this temporary or permanent?"

"It's permanent. The risk of sunburn or skin cancer is heightened forever."

Other effects of the radiation therapy should be transient, particularly the nausea. I was advised to continue taking my anti-emetic tablets, Maxolon, as usual (three times a day, before meals) for another week.

The effects of the radiation therapy (such as fatigue) may reasonably be expected to peak in the next week to ten days, after which I should start experiencing some improvement.

I will have an assessment six weeks in the future, and at some stage I will be seen by a physiotherapist to be assessed. And, of course, at some stage in the future, maybe in September, I will have a vitrectomy, a jelly-removal operation for the right eye to clean out the cancer junk.

Okay.

I don't like the thought of being, in a sense, a cancer patient for the rest of my life, living with the possibility that the radiation may come back and bite me years from now, inflicting brain damage or malignancy. But, overall, having survived both chemotherapy and radiotherapy, my dominant mood is one of quiet optimism.

I think I'm going to get out of here alive.

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