First two days of radiotherapy

The first two days of radiotherapy have finished.  I was a bit tired at the end of the first day.  Today I am feeling fine.

The radiotherapy is done in the early morning and the afternoon.  I have to lie on a bed with my feet up on a ledge.  Bags of stuff are packed down the side of me against panels against either shoulder.  I then lie there like a sardine for 40 minutes.  Twenty minutes on one side, the bed is then rotated around 180 degrees and I get zapped on my other side.  I feel nothing during the whole procedure except beeing a bit sore from being perfectly still for so long.

I have experienced no nausea etc so far from the radiotherapy.

I also had a lumbar puncuture on wednesday at lunchtime.  This is much like an epidural.  I lie on my side on the bed in fetal position.  A shot of local anaesthetic and a needle into the spine.  As usual I felt a bit faint etc but that is my normal reaction to needles – there was no pain.  The worst part was having to lie on my back for two hours without moving much in order prevent a headache etc.  I was a bit shagged after that.

After this mornings radiotherapy I had my pentamidine inhalation.  This stuff is to prevent pneumocystis pneumonia.  I sat in a closed room and inhaled the stuff for about 20 minutes.  No problems there.

One more day of radiotherapy and then two days of chemo.  I then have a day off and get Nicoles stem cells on Tuesday.

By the way, I am in big room shown in a earlier blog entry here.