This morning Mum takes me to my appointment with Db at Toomac to get fitted for a lymphedema compression sleeve. This is funded by the hospital as I was referred through physio. I’m pleased it hasn’t taken very long although I’m not that excited about the sleeve itself – my experience with compression socks in hospital is that they are very tight and very hot. Add in summertime (when it gets here) and my current hot flashes and I think I might melt.
Db is very friendly and measures me up to see what will fit. Apparently I have long, slim arms which I find quite funny. I’ve always had fairly big arms from swimming and holding camera gear (not together of course) but I have lost a lot of muscle mass over the last 6 months. I currently feel like I’m residing in a foreign body.
The sleeve is tricky to get on – imagine a snake trying to put it’s skin back on after shedding. I’m told practice makes perfect and am instructed to start by wearing it for 3 hours a day, slowly working up to all day. I can keep it on during radiation treatment if I want, and wearing it will help with swelling. Anything to avoid lymphedema – I saw pictures of a chronic case recently where the poor woman’s arm had swollen up like a balloon and it looked super painful.
Afterwards we head to the lab test centre in Beachhaven and I get blood taken for my DNA test. I don’t expect to get the result for a couple of months, but it’s good to at least get the process started.
I spend the remainder of the day juicing, reading and resting; slowly filling in the time until it’s time to go to Radiation. I don’t really want to go out anywhere as there is so much Covid around at the moment. Sister K tested positive a couple of days ago. So far Susannah and I are ok, but you could so easily catch it anywhere.
My Radiation Round 9 appointment is at 7:15pm. I am supposed to have a check up with the nurse but the reception is empty and dark when we arrive so I head straight downstairs to the Radiation Treatment area. I change and sit quietly in the waiting room. There are 3 other people ahead of me so I am waiting there for awhile. After my treatment I go back upstairs to see the nurse. By this time it’s about 8:45 and I am knackered. I don’t say much to the nurse, everything’s ok, my skin is getting a bit itchy but no other major symptoms and my weight has not changed. Please let me out of here! I am held up by my pesky blood pressure which the nurse is very concerned about. Once again my diastolic BP is way too high, registering at about 120 when it should be lower than 90. I’m too tired to care so I promise to check it regularly and make an appointment with my GP if nothing changes. Finally I go home.
I’m overtired but too wound up to go to bed so I stay up a bit and browse online. I see Alice, another young lady in one of my cancer groups, has gained her angel wings. It’s so unfair.
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