All Tatt'ed Up

It's been a big week and Charl is tired, but we've mercifully gotten to the "one month after his last chemo treatment" stage, which is the time we anticipated it would take his bloodcounts to recover. Granted we were very careful of avoiding crowds etc, but he didn't get even so much as a sniffle during this time. This is rather remarkable given that his immune system has been beaten to a pulp over 6 chemo sessions, and he didn't have the benefit of the immune booster injection this last time. We are very grateful for no sickness, no fevers, no more ER visits. He is getting stronger, has more energy throughout the day and is able to do more which is celebrated by both of us!

In preparation for radiation, Charl had two tasks: get another CT scan, and get tattoos. The doctors take the CT scan results and "map" out where best to do the radiation. Knowing next to nothing on the topic, hearing just the little bit the radiologist explained to us sounds like it is a very complex and intricate process, and understandably one that is critically important to get right.

Once they know where the radiation will go, they insert dots of pigment onto Charl's chest, in the areas they will be radiating. They do this with indelible ink so it doesn't wash or rub off during the course of the 20 treatments, and also thereby avoid radiating the wrong body parts. The tattoos look very much like small black freckles, and they gave him three: one where the tumour is, and one on either side of his ribs, way around the sides. Don't have any further info on why they are on the sides, but we expect they do know what they are doing.

We haven't received a firm date yet for radiation start date, but we expect it to be within the next week.