Lady and The Brain ~ Treatment Begins

April 2, The Brain's first Radiation Treatment was circled on all of our calendars.   I really had no idea how to approach the day The weekend before Radiation we tried to keep things as normal as possible.  Saturday, as usual, we went to the movies.  Sunday was Easter and so we enjoyed a nice brunch.  The tension was palpable but sadly there was little we could do to lighten it no matter what we tried.   The plan for Monday was to enjoy a nice lunch at one of The Brain's favorite restaurant's Joe's Crab Shack, which is located right on the ocean.  We surprised the brain by wearing specials T-Shirts of support.  Feeling left out we wound up buying him a grey Joe's Shirt.  (If you haven't noticed Grey is the color of Brain Tumor Support Ribbons). We truly stalled as long as possible then finally had to head over for treatment. There are two centers near us that MD Anderson uses so instead of heading downtown every day we chose one a bit closer.  The team at the facility couldn't have been nicer.  They also let me in the back so I could view his first session.  While the first session is a bit longer as they have to get all the settings into the system it only took 10 minutes.  During his treatments The Brain gets to choose whatever music he wants to play throughout.  Piano Classics wound up being his go to for all 6 weeks.  The only discomfort he has was due to the mask and was immediately addressed. The daily treatments last less than 3 minutes.  (In case you missed it here is the post on radiation) Within a week we can park the car, register, have The Brain's radiation and be back in the car in under 15 minutes.  If only the facility wasn't over 30 minutes away this would have been a piece of cake.   In addition to starting Radiation The Brain also started chemo-therapy.  He was on Temador a pill form of chemo that was delivered to our home.  He took 2 pills every night with a dose of Zofran to minimize vomiting. The first week of treatment went fairly easy, but then it started to catch up with him which is how Radiation works.    By the end of week two The Brain was starting to show signs of fatigue.  Naps after treatment were needed.  His appetite was decreasing so anything that interested him was considered good.  We wound up frequenting BWW quite a bit during this time playing Texas Hold 'Em and Trivia where of course I was Lady Bren and he was Brain. We were fortunate that he never had trouble with the chemo.  Another side effect we started to see was him losing hair at the site of Radiation treatment.  Despite all his worries he'd have weird hair holes forever it did all grow back -per my promise there is no photographic evidence of the hair loss.   This I think is a good analogy:  Think of radiation like weed killer for your grass: when you apply it you don't see the results right away. You just have to trust that it's there doing what it is supposed to do.