Radiation

My sweet sister had to get her brain radiated for 6 – 6 1/2 weeks. After a craniotomy! When I think of everything she’s been through it just makes me cry. She had to wear a mask that was fitted just for her. It covered her entire head and went down around her neck. They attached this mask to the table where she was trapped for about 6-8 minutes while the laser beams went all around her head. The first beam went for about two minutes, then they came from the command room and manually rotated the table, then the second beam was about 2 minutes.  Every time the pattern was the same. She said it was painfully tight. She couldn’t even blink or swallow. I’m already crying! Man. She did this every morning Monday through Friday at Tacoma General Hospital, which was about 40-45 minutes away. Her hair loss followed where these beams went through, damaging the hair follicles as they targeted the cancer cells. I guess she could smell the burning hair/skin. TERRIBLE. She said it felt like she had been in the sun all day long after a treatment, and sometimes like her brain was under water.

We showed up to live with the Thurgood family about a week or so into radiation and stayed until the end. Kelli did so incredible. The first half seemed to go by so fast. She seemed like her regular old self to me, just super tired and needing to rest throughout the day. Obviously, it’s helpful to have a second set of hands around, but I was very impressed with how she was handling things. Her sweet daughters didn’t even know the extent of what was going on with their mom. It seemed pretty normal, really! 

Towards the last few weeks of her treatment, I could tell she wasn’t feeling well at all. Her nausea was getting worse, she was SO tired. She basically got home from radiation and went to bed for the day, finally feeling better enough to come out around dinner time. I knew it was finally catching up to her, because she had not been like that before that 4 week mark. Up until that point she hadn’t been taking any medications for the swelling or anything. She was surprising her Doctors with how amazingly well she was doing. The last week and a half or so, she decided she needed the steroids. She had a bit of a rocky start getting on the right dose for a few days, but after that she was a completely new woman! She was wishing she started those the week prior when she was down and out. Those drugs were miracle drugs and she got right through to the end feeling SO good. She even drove herself a few times that last week! Her regular doctor had to sign off that she was capable of driving, and he gave her the all clear. For someone at the end of radiation for grade 3 brain cancer to have a doctor note to be able to drive is just crazy. She got better and better instead of worse and worse. (The latter being more typical, as far as I understand.)

She knew she wanted me to come along for some pictures to document her favorite nurses and doctors. We couldn’t figure a time for just me to go, since Aaron and Clint had work every day. We ended up just bringing the kids with us her second to last day. Aaron really wanted to go with her to her last treatment, and we had a surprise party in the works anyway. I needed to be home to prepare for that!

She was looking so cute and decided she didn’t want to wear a hat for pictures. She wanted to remember what she looked like in that moment. She said if there was any place to walk around without her hat, it was the radiation wing. I was so proud of her! I could immediately tell that Kelli just lit up that place. She told me all these stories about her nurses, so I felt like I knew them already. I could tell they all loved her. As much as she was happy to be done with radiation, she said she was going to miss it! And all of the amazing people she met along the way.