Radiation Simulation

Today I went for my radiation simulation. It was painless except for a little pinprick feeling (and burning) when they tatooed a little dot on my chest and on my side under my arm. The technician, Sean, said that actual tattoos hurt less than those little dots. Not sure I want to find out.

The toughest part was staying still with my left arm curved up and out to my left side and placed in a stirrup, for about 45 minutes. Even though my head was placed on top of a wedge, my neck started to ache and my head felt a bit tingly. Not too comfy.

Both doctor and tech used a sharpie marker and drew little dots on various places around my breast. Then a bunch of x-rays from many angles took place, each time either the tech or the doc would come back in and look at a screen and look at the map projected onto my skin. Next, I got a plaster strip placed over my breast until it hardened (not sure what they do with this--maybe use it to make sure everything is lined up just right before the treatments?). Last, these little strips were placed above and below my breast with a wire taped around the incision area and two plastic round dots taped to the center of my chest and the side under the arm area where the tattoos were. I had to then go to get a CT Scan to further assist in the mapping out of my radiation treatment program.

My first treatment will be on Tuesday, February 17th and will continue, Monday-Friday, until Monday, April 6th. Hopefully, that will be it... I'll find out about chemo on March 4th based upon the Oncotype Dx test.