Sylvia's Journal

A friend of mine called me radiant when she saw me recently, in spite of my recent health challenges. Since I am going to have to start radiation treatment soon it made me reflect on the words that suggest I am emitting rays. Soon these rays will not only come from me but also from a machine. It is hard to switch my mind from radiation being harmful to being a cure. Apparently there is a minuscule chance of the radiation treatment creating, rather than curing cancer. Lawyers here tell doctors that they have to tell you about even the tiniest risks of a treatment.

Yesterday I met with the radiation oncologist. She is a young woman (most of our healthcare providers these days seem to be younger than our children). When I saw her name I asked whether she was from Nigeria. Yes, she was. We talked about my many visits to Nigeria to help Nigerian colleagues improve the performance of their local health systems. I told her that of all the countries I have visited in Africa, Nigeria was to me the most exotic, most colorful and most fascinating. She doesn’t get to hear such compliments much. For many Americans Nigeria evokes images of con men trying to get your bank account and social security numbers.

I had imagined that during our consultation she would go over the many reports and then tell me that she didn’t think I would need radiation. After all, the reports had been negative: a tiny lump of lobular cancer cells (stage 1) – now removed; the oncotype report that put it at number 8 on a 100 point scale (very low risk), and the fact that no cancer cells had traveled to my lymph nodes and that the margins were clear. Instead I learned that although the margins were clear, the space between the cluster of cancer cells and the posterior wall of where the cancer was located was not as large as it should be. It was an unpleasant surprise that changed my mind about radiation.

And so I will be starting my radiation treatment soon. From April 14 on I will present myself every (work) day until May 14 to the radiation center of the Lahey Clinic in Peabody to receive the rays that are expected to kill any remaining cancer cells that may still be present. They will prep me for that in a simulation (a ‘sim’) treatment next week. This is when they will make tiny tattoo marks to help focus the beam of rays and set up the equipment. I am told to expect a bit of sunburn and fatigue. “You will want to go to bed earlier,” she told me. I replied that I already go to bed very early, around 8PM. “Well, then you will want to go to bed around 7PM.” I sometimes already do that. So, until mid sometime mid to late May it will be ‘early dinners and no visits in the evening.’