I am officially 100% radiated… or as I like to think of it, fully zapped. To recap the week, I received my five planned Stereotactic Radiation Treatments (SRT). To give you an ideas of what this entails, receiving radiation treatments are pretty straightforward. Essentially I lie perfectly still on a platform to which my “goalie mask” is clipped, so that I am not able to move my body around while being radiated. While I get to lie down and be clipped into an immobile position, the machine itself has several large drums that move around me and shoot the cancer-killing rays into my head. This sounds like it’s painful, but there’s no pain or any form of sensation at all (other than the snuggish mask over my puffy face!)… it’s essentially like getting an x-ray… just with more intense rays.

Earlier in the week, I experienced very little in side effects, but with radiation, the impact of the treatments is cumulative, so I am starting to feel a few side effects now. However, everything so far is tolerable. I have a continuous low-grade headache (which I can treat with Tylenol) and I’m starting to feel some fatigue (which I can treat with naps!) From what the oncology team tells me, I will likely feel side effects for about a month post-treatment. This sounds like an ordeal, but if the degree of the side effects remains as it is today (fingers crossed!), then I will survive this… no problem!

The bigger news from this week is the after-treatment monitoring plan. The first post-treatment MRI will take place in three months, and this will look at how the five tumours are responding to the radiation (yeah…turns out there are five… not four… another guy snuck in there.) This time frame sounds long, but it is the appropriate amount of time as it turns out that it takes two to twelve months for the radiation treatments to take full effect. Given this, I will have an MRI at Credit Valley Hospital every three months for the first year, and then every six months for the following two years. Beyond this, I will also be having other scans done at Princess Margaret in the next month and beyond, so I am pretty comfortable with the level of oversight going forward.

But I have other good news from the week. First, I’m finally being weaned off the steroids, which is great for two reasons – one, I may soon be able to get my first decent night’s sleep since December 6th, and two, even with just the initial reduced dose, my face is starting to deflate! Good riddance to Puffy Face! The last fun news from the week is that because I successfully completed all five treatments, I was able to ring the bell at the cancer centre…so it’s good news all around! Thanks to everyone for all of your support thus far 🙂 ! I will be focusing on my rehab and recovery for the next little while, and then working towards resuming my regularly scheduled life… Onwards and Upwards!

The big week is finally here. My week of radiation treatments kicked off earlier this morning with the first of the five scheduled radiation treatments. Everything went smoothly this morning, and now I’m hanging out at home waiting to see if any side effects might kick in. I feel pretty good at the moment, and I’m thinking that it might be another day or two before anything materializes. Side effects from the radiation could be in the form of headaches or dizziness, but will likely present as fatigue or nausea.

And I’m okay with that… because to be honest, I can use a bit of a break from eating! I’ve been on steroids with pretty much zero exercise for almost seven weeks… plus the drug is causing some water retention alongside a brand new steroid-fueled appetite! While I generally don’t eat big portions, over the last month I’ve been using this newly found appetite to indulge in a more than a bit of comfort food (which I’ve been thoroughly enjoying!) However, between the excessive eating and the water retention in my face, I was a little concerned going in today that my radiation mask might be a little too snug… (full disclosure: it was definitely tighter than when it was made two weeks ago…!) …and here is some evidence of of why:

Yesterday was an incredible day. I was the recipient of two very special deliveries. The first was the arrival of Heidi, my “oldest” friend (in duration, not age!), who arrived from Houston. We are in our 35th year of friendship… a friendship that began in high school and has endured despite not always living in the same province, country or even continent! Heidi is here to Jane-sit for the last week of 24 hour surveillance, and then will be here with me to help me during Treatment Week as well.

The second special delivery was the arrival of 1,000 paper cranes… Jane’s Cranes.

You may be wondering where all of these cranes may have come from… well, the answer is Burgundy’s Client Ops Team: My, Alice, Sharon, Kathy and Derek 🙂 The genesis of this is a Japanese tale that the folding of 1,000 paper cranes provides a wish…

For those of you who don’t know the team, I will tell you a little bit about them. They are formidable and are a force to be reckoned with. I had the privilege of working with this team over the course of a several years at Burgundy, and they are so impressive and so passionate about what they do, which comes across every day. And most especially with this 1,000 paper crane project.

It seems that when the team heard my news, they decided that they wanted to obtain that wish so that they could help me with my fight. So they ordered origami paper and collectively… with help from their families as well… folded 1,000 paper cranes.

The love and support that I have received from the team is so incredible that it is almost overwhelming… having this team in my army, supporting me on the wings of a 1,000 paper cranes… means the world to me. And believe it or not, for the first time in my life, I may have possibly been at a loss for words… 🙂

The last week has been busy… well relatively speaking given my newly adopted OWL status (Oakville Woman of Leisure) 🙂 …

My MBA program resumed over the weekend, and I was able to attend all of the classes, under the close supervision of my awesome MBA teammates… who by the way, are way more strict than any of my other Jane-sitters! Despite the enhanced scrutiny, it was great to be out and about in society beyond my condo walls, and participating in a normal life activity. And I promise that I won’t over do it… if at any point the schoolwork becomes too much, I will pull the plug and postpone my classes until after treatments are done.

The other exciting news is that the pre-radiation appointments took place over the last couple of days as well. These are the appointments to essentially draw the map of the targeted radiation therapy that will be used to blast the rest of the tumours from my brain. The other part of this planning process is that the radiation team has essentially built me a custom goalie mask. This will be used also for applying the targeted treatments, as well as ensuring that my head doesn’t flop around while I’m being zapped.

This “zapping” is more technically known as Stereotactic Radiation Therapy (SRT). SRT is a specialized form of radiation treatment that utilizes a precisely focused beam of radiation to treat small, stereotactically defined, target lesions while minimizing irradiation of adjacent normal structures.

The other good news about this SRT treatment, is that while it is quite intensive, there are only five scheduled treatments… which is a far cry from the 30 treatments the last time I went through rads (which was post chemo and surgery, to boot). A few of you may recall that the last time, it was the rads that kicked my ass the most… so mentally preparing for five treatments is a lot less daunting this time around… But let’s hope that I don’t regret writing these words… However time will tell soon enough, as the treatments will be starting on January 23rd… it’s time to get this radiation show on the road!

I have been remiss in introducing the neurosurgeon… especially since he was kind of the main man in the first part of my adventure, so let’s meet him. Dr. Eric Marmor is a neurosurgeon with Trillium Health Partners, and I was lucky enough to be matched with him to perform the surgery to get rid of the four centimeter big boy. However. when I first met the surgeon, and noted his name in my phone, autocorrect of course kicked in and my phone recorded his name as DR MARMOT. Which is now stuck in my head. Oops.

As you may recall, December 13th was the big day and it was the doc’s time to shine. But before we got to that part of the day…

A few minutes after the locked bed incident, the door to the OR is propped open and I can see Doc Marmot in the hallway in conversation with another neurosurgeon. The two surgeons then enter the OR, and move their conversation over to a set of monitors that were showing a detailed graphic of a brain. The docs get deep into discussion here for a few minutes, and then two other members of the team drift over… ostensibly to glean important medical insights from the two neurosurgeons… who are discussing the following:

“Maybe we can go over?… or how about going around the back on this side?… or possibly even under…?”

This goes on for several minutes before one of them realizes that I’m totally paying attention to this conversation… and again, I just couldn’t help myself… I had to say it: “Oh I can totally hear you! and I’m going to assume that you are talking about someone else’s brain. I would hope at this point that you already have game plan for me, and you aren’t still discussing surgical options!”

The whole group turns to look at me… I’m in stitches… the looks on their faces were priceless… one of the docs confirmed that it was definitely not my brain under discussion… and then they scattered like ants… I felt a little bad for breaking up the party, but I was having such a laugh that it was totally worth it 🙂

So yes, brain surgery is terrifying. But being able to see the lighter side of life probably did more for me that day than knowing any other pertinent details about the procedure. This approach may not be the right one for everyone, but it got me through what has probably been the most traumatic day of my life. And I survived.