No more zaps!

I suppose I've kept you waiting long enough regarding the question, am I done with radiation?  The short answer is YES, and the reason for my delinquency is that I've been doing so very much LIVING that I haven't taken the time to post.  Yes, posting is not about having the time, but taking the time.

I was a bundle of nerves when I saw Dr. Radiation Oncologist on Tuesday, fully expecting him to scoff at my pinkness and sentence me to another week of radiation in order to achieve the ambiguous yet desired redness.  (My chest wall has survived remarkably well and looks like it has been to Puerto Vallarta rather than to Radiation Oncology...I wish).  Instead, he said, "you're done".  In my confusion I found myself nearly arguing for more radiation, saying things like, "but my skin was never very red!"  It turns out that my misconception laid in the purpose of the bonus radiation:  I thought that the bonus radiation doses were to stimulate redness, but the bonus radiation doses were merely a radiation boost regardless of redness.  Yes, redness was the goal for the original three weeks, and when that wasn't achieved the boosts were prescribed with no more redness in mind.  Said another way, the redness was his barometer for how effective the original radiation therapy was, and when the redness didn't cross his threshold, he prescribed the 2 days of boosts to ensure the efficacy of the radiation course, regardless of redness.  Confusing, I know, but hopefully this makes sense and anyway, I'm DONE!

Herceptin chemo yesterday was delightfully uneventful.  The biggest thing is that we scheduled my next PET scan for June 6th, and Dr. Oncologist will report the results to me on my June 8th herceptin day.  The purpose of this PET scan is to look for metastatic cancer.  The inflammatory breast cancer is super duper ultra gone, but my T9 vertebral body was suspicious on my last PET scan in March.  Pesky spine bone that doesn't hurt or anything!  The biopsy of said bone was inconclusive, revealing atypical cells but nothing specifically cancer or not cancer (read some of those early March posts if you want a more in-depth review).  So, PET scan in June.  I'm choosing not to worry about it but rather go on riding the happiness wave.  Nothing I can do about it anyway.  

Frank, your celebratory song suggestions were more than excellent, and I am grateful.  I chose, however, to take it as a challenge to come up with an even better one.  I submit to you and your fellow Carnations followers:

It's Oh So Quiet, by Bjork.  Not surprising, since we all know by now that I tend to go for the jazzy instrumentals.  And another selection (Tchakovsky's Chinese Dance, from The Nutcracker) that sounds like spring despite its perpetual winter holiday employment and includes a rather goofy dance (this one's for you, Hol):