Post Radiotherapy Effects and General Musings

So my radiotherapy side effects are considerably less horrible than those I had with chemotherapy.

Last weekend I felt absolutely terrible and thought that this was from the first round of radiotherapy, so I was not really looking forward to the remaining 4 sessions. I now think that the reason I had such a horrible weekend last weekend was primarily due to the truly grim night I spent at Northwick Park Hospital lying flat on my back, not moving and definitely not sleeping.

I have a slightly pink back, according to Terry, which is subsiding. They also warned me that I would have back pain from the radiotherapy. Well given that I was in considerable pain before the radiotherapy, anything else would not really be a problem. As it happens my back pain is subsiding, so much so that I have reduced the considerable amount of painkillers I have been taking. My bowels are suffering a bit, but this might also be due to the reduction of painkillers. So it all looks good for the moment.

The MacMillan nurse called me on Friday to see how I was doing. Apparently, I have a gap of about 6 weeks before any further treatment, presumably to let all the after effects from the radiotherapy to abate, which is nice, as I have a couple of birthdays and a wedding to attend between then and now.

As you can imagine I have had a lot of time to ponder on my lot.

Every year I had a mammogram and an MRI of my remaining breast, which all came back clear. At some point over the last five years I did have a hystoscopy as I had a slightly suspicious discharge that came back clear. I also had an endoscopy when my hiatus hernia appeared to worsen, this also came back clear, in fact my hiatus hernia has gone. So it's not as though I have ignored potential symptoms. Would it be cost effective to do yearly full CT to every cancer patient? At what point would you stop doing annual CT scans? I'm not sure of the answers to any of these questions. I look back over the last few years and think of all the various aches and pains I have had in my back, shoulders and neck. All of which were sorted out with physiotherapy. I have had problems with my neck, shoulders and back for decades, primarily due to slouching over a desk for a living. Did the cancer move in there because I already have a weakness there? I think that on balance I probably caught the recurrence early. In some ways it is good that the cancer did take up residence in my bones and cause pain, rather than in some other organ where potentially I wouldn't have noticed until the prognosis was much worse. So overall I think that I probably have probably got the medical intervention as early as I reasonably could have.