Radiation Update After 13 Days

I'm on week 3 of radiation, so far so good!  My days go something like this:

Monday:

• Leave for Tulsa, it's a 4 hour drive.  Stop in Joplin for a break.
• Arrive in Tulsa around 11 or so.  Unpack my car, I bring a lot of stuff, laptop, printer, monitor, cables, my personal laptop, iPad, clothes and other misc supplies.
• Get everything setup in my room, check email and do a little work.
• Head downstairs to grab something to eat in the cafeteria, then get my blood drawn for labs.
• Then I go to radiation.  That takes about 15 minutes.  They set me up in the radiation machine, then close the big door, I feel like I'm in a vault.  The machine moves around me for a while, then zaps me for about 20 seconds, then zaps me again for about 25 seconds.  The machine moves around me again and zaps me for 23 seconds and another 20 seconds.  I try to count during each time and I always get different numbers, anywhere from 18-25 seconds.  Then they open the big vault doors and help me get off the table and I'm done! 
• Work the rest of the afternoon.

Tuesday-Friday:

• I get up pretty early, usually by 6:30.  Coffee is right down the hall so I can grab that really quick and as much as I NEED. 
• Radiation is at 8:45, I usually get there at 8:30 and they get me right in. 
• On Tuesday's and Thursday's I get LED Therapy.  That's supposed to help with the redness.
• On Wednesday's, I meet with the Radiation Doctor. 
• The rest of the day I spend working.  I actually get quite a bit done.
• They have different activities in the evenings:
• Therapy Dogs, the dogs are really pretty
• Bingo
• Bunco
• Comedy Show
• Cake Celebrations
• On Friday, I get my treatment early and then head home.  That's my favorite part of the week!

The food is really good here and fairly cheap.  I got some things to keep in my in-room fridge, yogurt, cheese, apples, grapes, etc.  

The side effects from my radiation after 13 days have been very minimal.  I have some redness, but it almost goes away when I take a break on the weekends.  My energy level is still really good. 

This is the view outside my room.  They have a nice walking trail here also

Last week, the Optimist Club, that I am a member of, had a fundraiser selling mums.  We picked the mums up from a local grower and then stored them all at my house so the members could pick them up and deliver them.  I usually help with this, but wasn't home this time to do very much, except offer my driveway as a holding spot.  Here's a picture of the first load of mums.  We sold almost 450 mums!  They were really nice large mums too.  I mostly sold to my neighbors because I didn't want Kasey and Mark to have to deliver too many of them.  When people see how nice these are, they always want to buy more.  We sell them for $14 each.

Tour of Tulsa

The Cancer Center has a lot of activities each month.  Last week I went on a Tour of Tulsa.  I was the only one on the tour, had a driver and the tour guide, Jerry.  It was a really nice tour and I learned a lot about Tulsa.  Here's some of the pictures of the day:

These praying hands are at the Oral Roberts University in Tulsa.  They were huge!  They are the "world's largest praying hands", standing 60 feet tall and weighing 30 tons, it's apparently the largest bronze sculpture in the world.  Isn't that something?

This is a cool building, but I can't remember where it was or what it was.  It may have been the tallest building in Tulsa.

At one time, Tulsa, Oklahoma sat atop the world's largest-known ocean of oil. Drilling derricks were everywhere, even on the lawn of the state capitol. The city called itself "Oil Capital of the World."

But Tulsa did not build Tulsa's giant oil man. It was built by an oilfield supply company out of Texas, which set him up in 1953 for a trade show at the Tulsa State Fairgrounds. Dubbed "The Golden Driller," the giant roustabout resembled an oversized brass statuette, with a broad grin, a tin helmet tipped back at a rakish skew, and a gloved right hand raised in a kind of limp-wristed OK sign. The statue proved so popular that the Texas company returned six years later with a second temporary giant.

A third giant, tallest of all at 76 feet, took up permanent residence at the Fairgrounds on April 8, 1966. This version still stands today. He's very different from the original Golden Driller, with a slender waist, muscles ripped on a bare chest, mustard-colored rather than gold, and a face that's a chiseled mask of Teutonic invincibility. He was designed by George S. "Grecco" Hondronastas (1893-1979), a Greek immigrant to Tulsa who viewed the Driller as his greatest artistic accomplishment.  (I didn't write all that, I stole it from Roadside America). 

We also stopped at a Glacier Confections, a neat chocolate store at Utica Square.  I bought a couple of pieces of chocolate and managed to get two of them home to Mark and Kasey, but they didn't like them for some reason.  I should have just eaten them and never told them.  :)

At the Cancer Treatment Center, they were having a 5 year survivor party.  This was the new tree they put up in the hallway and put up the 5 year "leaves" on the tree.  It was a nice celebration for the survivors.  I'll have my name on the tree someday!  Looking forward to that.

On my way home I stopped in Joplin to visit with my dad and his friend Tom.  They were at the big "Guilty by Association" Truck Show.  It was a really big truck show with lots of big trucks that had a lot of chrome and amazing paint jobs on them.  It was pretty hot so I didn't stay very long.  On Saturday evening, they were having a "truck parade" down the streets of Joplin with all their lights on.  I asked a couple of people if the "truck parade" was going to be on Twitter or streaming on social media.  They all quickly corrected me "you mean the convoy?"  Well, yes, I guess so, although it sure sounded like a parade to me!  I forgot all about it and didn't check it out on Saturday night.

There's my dad and Tom checking out an engine on a truck, umm, let's go guys!

Tulsa Aquarium Visit

One of the things that I like about the Cancer Treatment Centers of America is they have all sorts of activities scheduled during the month.  Since I have to be here all week for 5 weeks, I am taking advantage of some of these activities.

Today, we took a bus to the Tulsa Aquarium.  The Shark Tunnel was neat.

This was the underside of a shark that swam over the tunnel.  The picture isn't the best.  

 They had a lot of sharks in the tank.  

Sting rays, no, I didn't pet any of them.  

This picture is just pretty with all the colors.  

Hello, frog!  They were big!

White turtle.

Look at all these catfish!

I wasn't even sure this turtle was real.  They said that he lays like that for over 3 hours without moving before needing a breath.  Apparently turtles grow 1 lb for every year of life, this turtle weighs 122 lbs, so was born in the 1880's sometime.

Other little turtles, reminds me of the turtles at Bass Pro Shops in Springfield, MO.

This was from a big aquarium, the whole area was really colorful and geared towards kids.  Kids could go in the bubble and watch the fish swim around.  Kasey would love that!

This fish wanted to visit me.

Another big turtle, he was really active, swimming around.  I have a video below of him, plus some other things in the aquarium. 

Little clown fish, they were so cute!

Jelly fish

This was the electric eel at feeding time.  The feeder would run the stick across the back of the eel, he would back up and make an electric sound and then eat the shrimp.  I have a video of this below.  

Take a look at this video, it's not very long.  It features the shark tank, the large turtle swimming around, plus other pretty fish, feeding an electric eel, you can hear the electric when she feeds it and feeding some spitting fish.  She sticks food on the glass and the fish spit up at the glass and the food falls down into the water.  Apparently these fish can spit up to 10 feet in the wild in order to catch bugs off leaves and branches.

Radiation Treatments

I can't believe it's been so long since I have written in my blog!  I have been posting a few things on Facebook, but I need to catch up.

Surgery
I had surgery the end of July and the doctor's removed 4 lymph nodes and the tissue around the cancer tumors (which had shrunk down to almost nothing).  All areas had no cancer!  I did pretty well after surgery, just had some soreness, swelling, etc.

Herceptin
I still am doing a drug called Herceptin in my port every 3 weeks.  I have to continue this for a total of 18 sessions, so I think I have 10 more to go.  It doesn't have the same side effects as my other chemo drugs, so my hair grows back and I'm feeling really good.

Radiation
Today was my first day of radiation.  I will be doing 25 sessions of radiation, for a total of 5 weeks. One each day Monday through Friday, then go home for the weekend and rest, then back on Monday again.  I've decided to just do this on my own as much as I can.  Mark can stay home with Kasey so he can continue to go to school and have most things normal for him.  My mom is going to come with me one week and I'm thinking that will be toward the end.  They say that I will be really tired and it will hit me later after a couple of weeks of radiation.

I had so much stuff I needed to take with me to spend the week in Tulsa.  I had a work laptop, large monitor, printer, lots of paperwork and about 4 pair of pants I need to hem for Kasey.  Mark did some work on my car the week before I left, oil changes, checking brakes (my brakes look perfect after 4 years, tell my dad, he'll be shocked!) rotating tires and getting recalls on my car.  Since he was doing all that, I took his car to work.  I loaded all my stuff in his car, but forgot to load my laptop from his car to mine.  I made it about 3 hours from home when I remembered!  Ughhh!  I called Mark and he brought the laptop to me, meeting me about half way.  I rescheduled my appointment in Tulsa for my first radiation from 1:30 to 3:00 and I made it to Tulsa around 2:00.  I was really disappointed with myself.

One of the things that I really like about Tulsa is all the different activities that they have.  Tonight, they brought therapy dogs in.  This big St. Bernard was so sweet.

Did you know that dog cards are a thing?  When Kasey was down here with us, he got to check out the therapy dogs and the group then brought dog cards with them.  Most of the members of this group didn't have any cards, but one lady did have this card, isn't it just the cutest thing?

 This is the lunch menu at CTCA for this week.

This is the dinner menu.  I had Chicken Saltimbocca and it was $5.95.  It was chicken with cheese and some ham I think.  It was delish!

This was my chicken dish.  

This was my call from Kasey when he got home from school tonight!  He loves to Facetime, so he showed me all his homework papers.  He had a math test that he got 100% on and an English paper he got 100% on.  He was really proud!  And so was I.  It's so nice to be able to talk to him like this when I'm away.

Radiation is at 8:45 tomorrow morning and then I have an appointment with the Naturopathy Doctor.
Kelly