The Day I Finished Radiotherapy, April 8 2021

I have arrived at a time and place that had seemed so far away 4 months ago.

Today is my last day of radiotherapy and yesterday I officially ended my IV therapy. In short, I have completed my formal cancer treatment. This does not by any means imply that I will dilute my efforts to create health and vitality in my body.

Until a couple of days ago it had seemed that the treatments would go on forever. I even looked upon the daily trips down the Eastern Freeway as some sort of security blanket. The theory was simple, while I am still having treatment there is still hope.

Well yes, there is bucketloads of hope.

One interesting point that is easy to miss when dealing with a chronic illness is that the end goal is for your own body to repair itself enough, to become strong enough once more to do it’s own magic job of regulating the metabolism, cell apoptosis and regrowth, distribution and use of fuel, ATP production etc. 

It is easy to forget that the treatments are a means to an end, actions that precipitate the immune system to do its’ job as nature and evolution designed it to do.

In some sort of psychological way you can become reliant, almost addicted to the treatments. Thinking that they alone are the means to a cure. Silent killers, unseen soldiers, stealth bombers attacking the malignant, proliferating cancer cells that threaten to destroy your body and future happiness and health.

Well here I am on the cusp of relying solely on my body to do it’s own job. To regulate itself and monitor the cells interaction with each other.

Now it is up to what results the treatments have had and what fuel I put into my body, when I put it in, how I move my body and how I use it each day to make it stronger and in a constant state of maintenance and repair.

I will wait for the results of my efforts. The first will be the RGCC CTC  blood tests that I will do in a couple of weeks and then the PET Scan that I will do in June or July.

What I have to do now is to be patient. To continue to broaden my knowledge of the body, to keep up with the latest research into general health, cancer and how it proliferates, diet, exercise, sleep, stress management.

I have learned so much on my journey but having said that I have noticed that when you delve into a brand new field of learning and do not have existing foundations that the knowledge has to be applied religiously or it dissipates like mist. I sort of feels wonderful and refreshing when it is first sprayed but it is also elusive and slowly disappears.

I am seeing an exercise consultant next Monday to hopefully get advice on specific exercises and programs to create a stronger body. Now is also the time to really look at recipes for healthy, tasty low carb meals that will fuel and nourish me. And lastly to look at all of the resources that I have at hand like our sauna, exercise equipment, pool etc and how I can best use these.

But underlying all of this will be my prognosis. What happened to the cancer? What percentage of circulating cancer cells are still in my body.

My only real option is acceptance. I have made a huge effort to turn around a situation that I did not even know existed a bit more than 4 months ago. I have taken the bull by the horns and grappled with it. 

Mid Morning After Radiotherapy

I’ve finished my radiotherapy. Hallelujah!

The 2 most memorable things about this morning were the way the nurses turned up the volume on the 70s pop music as they left the room after I was saddled up for my last dose, it made me smile and the gentle, polite request from the admin girl at the front desk who asked me if I wanted to ring the bell. I hadn’t even noticed the bell once in the 6 plus weeks of my treatment. The significance of “ringing the bell” is that it marks the completion of your treatment, so in some ways it is quite significant. I hate to admit it but I got a bit mushy and a small tear formed in the corner of my eyes. Actually, I got quietly emotional much to my own surprise.

I walked out of the hospital, mask in hand, like a green cyborg. I ‘m talking about the mask. I was slightly aware that it was like a flag saying “I’m a cancer patient” but by this stage I didn’t give a shit. That part of the trip is over for now.

It’s now 4.30 and we are at Red Hill. We arrived about an hour ago and got straight into cleaning. We’ll finish almost everything tonight just wrap it up in the morning before we head off to The Peninsula Springs for our 7.30 start.

I have done the patio and entry and a quick once over vacuum of the internal carpet. Now I’m sitting down and that’s where I intend to stay for a while.

I went for a walk at about 5.30 but didn’t realise that this is too late these days now that we are back to E.S.T. I had no real plans of where I was going but ended up on a fire track that just kept going downhill. There was a certain point when I decided that there was no way that I was going to come back up, so I just kept walking and eventually reached Boundary Rd, almost 6 kms from Red Hill. That’s OK but it was getting dark by then and the roads were really quite busy plus there was no footpath, only a bit of gravel by the side of the road. I felt a bit like road kill after a  while. That’s when I started calling Georgie. She came to get me when I was about 3 kms from home and by then it was pitch black.

We’ve pretty much got the house ready to just get up in the morning, have a coffee and leave at 7.05 a.m

I’m so looking forward to the Springs in the morning.