Booster Phase

Mary Jo and I met yesterday with radiation oncologist Dr Kim McCollow for the weekly sit down consultation after Mary Jo’s radiation therapy session. Mary Jo is now in the last phase of her radiation therapy called the “booster” phase. For the first 28 radiation sessions, the daily dose of radiation given is 180 centigrade’s to five fields for a total treatment dose of 5040. The right chest wall from two angles, the left chest wall from two angles and the right subclavicular. In this last phase of treatment, Dr McCollow has prescribed 200 centigrade’s of radiation to a much more focused, very direct area. This is the actual site, pre op of Mary Jo’s breast cancer tumor on the right (breast) chest wall. The decision was made yesterday to also do a booster on the left chest wall (breast) area. Dr McCollow struggled with the decision to prescribe a booster to the left side but we insisted since clear margins were not attained from the initial double mastectomy. Dr McCollow agreed with our decision; however this will add a day or two to the overall treatments as new set up is required to now include the left chest wall.

Mary Jo is feeling good however she is a bit more tired each day from the cumulative effects of the radiation therapy sessions. The other negative side effect that causes discomfort is the skin sensitivity, rash and redness. Mary Jo is such a trooper. She rarely complains. She just tries to keeps the site as moisturized as possible. That’s all you can do and the doctors tell us the side effects should subside and gradually go away after the treatments are finished. Mary Jo and I are pretty excited to be able to travel to Omaha tomorrow with Diane after the radiation session to see our nephew Caleb, perform in his high school production of West Side Story.