August 15, 2024
Today I had radiation treatment 25 of 30. This time next week, I'll be done with them. I won't be sad to end the treatments themselves, but I will miss the people involved. I have absolutely nothing negative to say about radiation oncology at Evergreen. Every single person there is just kind and sweet and genuinely caring.
This week I'm having the most pronounced side effects thus far. One of the main effects of the treatments is similar to sunburn, and my neck is pretty scorched. There's a patch where some skin has peeled off and it's raw and painful. They've given me a generous prescription of pain meds for it, and another for a cream that should help. Other than that, it's mainly more fatigue, which I'm dealing with fine.
During the weekly visit with the nurse and doctor at Evergreen yesterday, the doctor translated one of Virginia Mason's pathology findings after the lung surgery. In my own vague ability to explain, the immune system can recognize cancer cells as things that aren't supposed to be in the body, like it does with bacteria or viruses. Cancer cells being the demonic little fuckers that they are put up a defense that makes them invisible to the immune system. Immune therapy makes this little cloaking device stop working. One of the test results shows how effective immune therapy will be, represented by a number on a scale of 1 to 100. Apparently most people with melanoma that has spread are in single digits on this result. My number is 89, which means immune therapy should work very well to exorcise any lingering cancer cells. That was very good news, as was the doctor saying that although there is a risk of losing my transplanted kidney during immune therapy, he suspects there won't be any trouble. Two very bright spots to balance out the heavier radiation side effects.
Speaking of immune therapy, I finally heard back from my medical oncologist. There will be a short gap between the end of radiation treatments and the start of immune therapy. This is to let some of the radiation effects start waning before beginning the next thing. First thing will be another PET scan to compare to the original one several months ago. Then we'll have an appointment to go over what the whole process entails. What I know so far is the immune therapy treatments will last a year, during which I'll go in once every two or three weeks for an infusion. During that time, I'll be doing weekly lab draws so my nephrologist can keep an eye on my transplanted kidney. He'll also have me on a significantly increased dose of prednisone, which is a steroid and is one of my three anti-rejection drugs, and that increase will help protect the kidney during immune therapy. (Also, I imagine with how higher doses of prednisone affect me, I'll be so wired someone's going to have to scrape me off the ceiling a couple times a day ) If anything is going to happen to the kidney, it will be within the first month, so that's not a question that will be hanging over my head the entire time.
So... things are moving along nicely. It's been a hell of a year so far, and I've gone through a LOT. But none of it has been quite as bad as I expected it to be, and there have been a ton of great people helping me through it, in various medical settings and at home, and a lot of encouragement from afar as well. Even simple reactions to Facebook posts have been helpful and uplifting, as have all the comments. Thank you for every single one of them.
