What It’s Like Getting 5 1/2 weeks of Radiation Treatment for Rectal Cancerfeatured

I really had no idea what to expect when my radiology oncologist told me during my three day orientation that I’d need 5 1/2 weeks of radiation treatments to attempt to kill and shrink my tumor, and attempt to eradicate any cancer in the surrounding rectal lymph nodes (the type of radiation I was given is IMRT to be exact – which means Intensity Modulated Radio Therapy. To find out more click on this link –  https://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=imrt#therapy-equipment).

Was it going to hurt? How sick was I going to get from it?  It sounded SCARY. 🙁

Well, I’m now an expert and I’ll share everything I can so that readers of this blog will know precisely what to expect.

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Radiation Machine Simulation:

On January 18th my brother and I went down to the Cancer Treatment Center in Philly for a few hours for me to do my radiation machine “simulation”. This had to be done first before my actual radiation treatments could begin.

Basically this process was done to make a cast of my body so that I could be in the same position for each radiation treatment. It only took about 30 minutes in total.  Here’s what they did:

They asked me to take off my jeans and sneakers and put on a hospital gown. Afterwards, they took my picture with a digital camera….which would be linked to my medical record so the technicans could validate each day it was really me they were treating.

Then, I was taken into a big room and they put me into a machine that looked like a CT Scanner, while I sat on a plastic blue tarp that was going to turn into a hard cast mold of my body from the waist down.

They also made pin prick size black tattoos on both hips and on a strategic spot just above my private area….and put really strong round clear stickers on them. This was going to be a visual aid to the technicians I’d be working with each day to line me up properly. These are INDUSTRIAL strength stickers….since most of them stayed on well into my 4th week of treatment…despite the fact that I took a shower every day!

As I was getting ready to leave, the two technicians mentioned to me that if I wore sweatpants with no metal on them, or leggings each treatment……I could simply pull down my pants on the table and I wouldn’t have to change into a hospital gown every time. Point taken! I went out and got a few leggings for the weeks ahead.

That was the end of that. Not so bad.

This is the cast that was made of my lower body. I had to sit in it each time during my radiation treatment.

Radiation Treatments Monday through Friday for 5 1/2 weeks:

So…..I was quite nervous on my first day of treatment which was January 24th, 2018.

On a side note, my brother and I arrived the night before since we live in New Jersey. We used Airbnb to rent different apartments/houses during the 5 1/2 weeks near the Chestnut Hill area of Philly. It was a nice quiet suburb about 30 minutes from the Cancer Center. This was cheaper (about $87 – $100 per night) than staying at the Raddison Hotel which would end up being $146 per night ($50 rate for the patient, $96 for additional rooms). The Cancer Center also had a free housing option called “Hope Lodge”….where you share a common kitchen with other cancer patients, but you have your own bedroom (which you can’t eat in). However, my brother and I wanted our own privacy….plus he had to work during this time-period…..so we got our own place which worked out very well for us.

Ok, back to the treatment process.

As I walked into the center that first day I really wasn’t sure what was going to happen. Here is a play by play:

The Cancer Center has a large waiting room in the radiation department where everyone getting treatments signs in and waits for their turn to go in. I was sitting there for about 10 minutes and finally my name was called. I met Anu, one of the technicians I’d be working with.

She walked me all the way down a very looooong hallway…….and finally we made it to our treatment room area where I also met Matt, my other technician. I had to verify my picture on their computer screen, and I had to initial a logbook that was keeping track of my treatments. 28 in total. It looked like such a loooonnnggg way to go.

Then they walked me into the actual treatment room where the machine was. There was a door we entered through that was about 2 feet thick! It looked like we were going into Fort Knox…but I’m guessing it was to contain the beams.

I was asked then to step up onto the machine and into the blue tarp mold (which they covered with bed sheets), and I laid down. They covered me with a warm sheet and I pulled my leggings down, but kept my underwear on.

The two technicians then pulled down the top sheet I was covered with and pulled down my underwear so they could see the stickers that had been put on me. Then they began to adjust me so that I was perfectly aligned to where I needed to be. They were looking at a big monitor that showed their error rate on it….it had to be zero, so they kept adjusting until it got there.

Then they covered me back up with the warm sheet, and I was given a blue ring to hold onto….in order to keep my hands still and out of the way.  As they were going to leave the room, they asked me what kind of music I wanted to listen to during the session which would take about 10 minutes.  At first I asked for spa music (to keep me calm)……then towards the last few weeks I asked for Motown (for motivation).

They then left the room and the machine began to swirl around me rather loudly.  About half way through, I felt my table move and tilt a bit. They were adjusting the angles. Then the machine swirled around me again.

I always kept my eyes closed during the treatment…..and tried to recite positive sayings like “Kill the tumor but don’t do any other harm to me”.  Before I would know it……it would be over and one of the technicians would come in and help me get out of the cast.

OK……I thought to myself “Not so bad!”

It was painless…..but the machine was very intimidating looking.

They made it as serene as possible by having two lovely illuminated pictures of the New Jersey shore on two walls. It was very calming. There was also an illuminated picture of clouds above the machine, so if you opened your eyes you would be staring at a sunny day with pretty puffy clouds as you were lying down!

So that was it!

That was my routine for the entire 5 1/2 weeks. The only thing that changed is that they did something called a “boost” on my last three days of treatment. This meant that they were ONLY going to point the radiation beam at the tumor. During the 5 weeks prior…..they also aimed it at surrounding lymph nodes and other target areas in the zone where recurrence could happen.

Throughout the weeks of treatment, every Tuesday I had a standing appointment with my radiation oncologist Dr. Suh and his patient assistant Kia. They were there to see how I was doing and help me with any side effects (I’ll do a separate post on my side effects during radiation treatment and what helped me).

Then finally my last day of radiation treatment, March 2nd, arrived.  I went through my typical procedure and then I met with one of the nurses who was going to officially “close out my file” and give me pointers for healing such as using a SITZ bath to soothe my burned bottom (a plastic basin you put on top of your toilet like a potty trainer..which lets you sit in a pool of water), and to eat plenty of protein to help me heal quicker.

I would now need to rest a total of 6 weeks to let my body recover and the inflammation to go down before any follow-up exam could be done on me.

As I walked out of the treatment room for the last time, I got to ring a bell at the nurses station to signify that I was finished and they all cheered and clapped for me. It was VERY emotional.

I thought to myself, I did it. I SURVIVED phase 1!

Yay me!

The illuminated picture of a beach in Cape May NJ