Crash and burn

At the halfway point of radiotherapy, it was looking OK. The initial plan was to have 33 sessions of radiotherapy. Two weeks ago, after the 25th session, the radiation oncologist decided that Jen needed a break from treatment, due to skin damage from the radiation. Although the damage was cumulative, the onset of the skin problems was quite rapid. Dead skin and blisters formed under Jen's breast and armpit, and up around her left shoulder, eventually extending up the left side of her neck. It's really like having significant burns, except that they are radiation burns. So she's had a terrible couple of weeks of pain and relative immobility. For a week we had a nurse visiting once a day to help. Jen's had a while being largely doped out on panadeine or stronger drugs, and not going out. We're hoping that in another week or so her skin will
have begun to heal properly.

Given that Jen has had most of the radiotherapy course, she's not keen to keep going even when the skin has all healed. As it is, she'll have
scans within the next two weeks, and we'll meet with the radiation
oncologist again on July 7th. The results of those scans will determine
whether we can go travelling or not. A bad outcome would be if
secondary tumours have reappeared in Jen's liver or elsewhere, which
would likely mean more chemotherapy. On the positive side, the radiation
treatment has been effective on the primary tumour, which has changed
noticeably. The severity of the skin damage is not so common, although
in retrospect there were some factors that increased the risk. We don't
regret having the treatment, which is really aimed at the future, not
the present.