Preparations for Focused Radiation to the Lung

Yesterday, I had the planning session for the focused radiation to the left lung.  It was not a fun process.  They have me laying down on my back with my arms over my head for over half an hour while there is a structure pressing on my diaphragm so I can’t breathe deeply.  My arms just ached and my stomach still feels a bit queasy from the pressure on the diaphragm. 

As an added bonus, I am now a tattooed lady!  I have 2 dots over and 1 under my left breast and 1 under each armpit.  Lucky me – something I will always have with me to remember my cancer!  They use these dots to line me up with the lasers exactly the same way for each treatment.

The treatments will be Wed-Fri, May 4-6 and Monday, May 9.  It will be good to have this over with!  The good news is that they can't even see the lung tumor clearly - just some faint broken up scar tissue.  They will be overlaying my original PET and CAT scans from the time of diagnosis with the current scans to confirm the proper target area.  You may be asking, as I did, why I should even go through this uncomfortable treatment if they can't even clearly see the lung tumor anymore.  The answer I was given is that Tarceva alone is not known to "cure" cancer and if that is the only treatment that the lung mass is subject to, it will likely come back.  The focused radiation, on the other hand, has a 90% "control rate," which means that by zapping the problem area no other cancers are likely to reappear in that area in the future.