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.