It was completely hard to conceive of 6 weeks of radiation when it was prescribed to me. Don’t ask me how I got from September 11 to here, to October 20, the end of radiation treatments. I just went every day, one at a time.

The team was amazing, from Dr. O’Meara and Janet Griffin, RN, to Ana and Greg who were there with me through most of the treatments. What I will never forget is Ana saying, “ok, here we go!”

The radiation lasted only about 8 minutes. For the first 4 weeks I had most of my hair but in the last two weeks I lost a lot, mostly on the left side of my head. They told me at the end that the radiation is still working in my body and that in the next 10 days I may feel worse before I feel better.

I have heard a lot about all the symptoms from the beginning and most of them never happened for me. I am hoping that will contiue to be the case.

Now I will get 4 weeks off – no more radiation ever hopefully – and no chemo for the next 4 weeks. The chemo will start up again after these 4 weeks.

Although the radiation is done, I will be continuing in the clinical trials with 9 vaccines at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. These will begin again on October 30 and continue into next year. The shots are painful, whereas the radiation was not. It must be the true definition of being an adult to drive yourself to the clinic to get painful shots!

I will do what I can to assure a healthy future.