Tag Archives: radiation treatment
Cognitive Issues Following Breast Cancer Treatment
Until recently, it was considered that only women and men who had chemo as part of their treatment for breast cancer might have cognitive issues as survivors. A new study challenges that theory, pointing to survivors who did not have chemo also experiencing cognitive problems after treatment.
An article in Science News, published in December 2011, reports a study found that breast cancer survivors may experience problems with certain cognitive abilities several years after treatment. This may occur whether they were treated with chemotherapy plus radiation or radiation only.
I found the article of particular interest as I did not have chemo, …
The #1 Fear in Survival…Recurrence
You’ve had your last chemo or radiation treatment and the medical oncologist and /or the radiation oncologist says, “See you in three months.” Even the surgeon doesn’t want to see you for three months. At first it is exhilarating…three whole months with no treatments, no one examining you, testing you, questioning you.
Then it hits you that you are on your own with no one looking after you, checking to see that you are okay, making sure that you are healing well, and reassuring you that your cancer is gone. For many of us that is when a new fear set …
Navigating Radiation Treatment
Once you know your radiation treatment schedule, it is time to develop a plan that will get you through the duration of your 6+ weeks of Monday through Friday treatments of External Beam Radiation.
Practical Considerations:
Get your home and work responsibilities streamlined. Don’t plan any major projects for the 6+ weeks in treatment.
Speak with those family members, friends and neighbors with whom you are comfortable sharing about your cancer and your upcoming radiation treatment. Accept offers of help with things like grocery shopping, laundry, errands, meal prep and child care, if you have young children. Most people want to help and …
Eating Well During Treatment is a Challenge!
The side effects of chemo and radiation leave many of us with little appetite. If it isn’t nausea or mouth sores that keep us from eating well, it is often that we lose interest in food because we are unable to smell or taste what we are trying to eat. If we have to cook for ourselves, being exhausted from treatment leads to grabbing anything easy and handy rather than preparing something nutritious. The fortified drinks we get in the chemo room or radiation area just don’t count as eating. They may give us the nutrients we need, but they …
Colleen Horan O’Farrell The Child She Was And The Woman She Would Become
Colleen was full of energy and spirit from the moment she was born. I often said she never learned to walk….crawling was much too slow, so she went directly to running. She was always climbing…..out of the crib, out of the playpen, then graduating to hills and trees. Our neighbor dubbed her, “Monkey.” Oh so many times I heard, “Don’t break her spirit,” when I was merely trying to keep her from breaking her neck.
She took swimming lessons early because she loved the water and the beach, and was too impatient to bother with a life jacket. A …
Framingham woman with breast cancer has her baby
By Danielle Ameden/Daily News staff
GateHouse News Service
The past:
After a four-year struggle to get pregnant, Framingham residents Rebecca and Larry Byrne found out in early January that they were finally expecting a baby, thanks to a successful in vitro fertilization procedure. In March, though, Rebecca was diagnosed with invasive ductile carcinoma, a type of breast cancer. Despite one doctor’s recommendation to abort, the couple decided to keep the baby while Rebecca, 35, underwent two surgeries and started chemotherapy for her breast cancer. She told her story at myboobandmybaby.blogspot.com.
The recent present:
Rebecca’s water broke early – at 33 weeks – and she delivered …
