Radiation Treatment Plan

Tiffany, her mom, Aunt Ivy, and I went to CHLA today to meet with the head of the radiation oncology department (Dr. Lavey) to discuss the radiation part of Tiffany's treatment plan.

Tiffany is going to start her third chemotherapy treatment on Monday (the 18th). That means she'll be in the hospital for nearly a week, then she gets to come home and recover for three weeks (although she's been doing it in just two), then she'll do her fourth chemo. Right after that (~ two days after getting her fifth and last daily dose), she'll start going to CHLA every weekday for radiation therapy. It's outpatient (she gets to go home after each treatment), which is good, and Dr. Lavey said it will be much easier to bear than surgery or chemo. She'll go in, they'll x-ray her for 15 minutes, then she can go home, and she won't feel any different. The only thing she'll probably notice is that she'll get tan (or maybe even sunburned) at the spot where the x-rays enter her body.

Monday through Friday for seven weeks Tiffany will be going in for this. Her fifth course of chemotherapy will be given at CHLA for a change, and they'll continue to give her radiation at the same time (she'll have to stay overnight for those 6 days). She won't do her doxorubicin chemo drug, but the other three drugs will stay the same. Doxorubicin makes her photosensitive, and in combination with the radiation, she would get a very bad sunburn.

Tiffany will be spending a lot of time driving beginning in mid-October! The reason she's going all the way to CHLA is that they're the very best place to do this. Radiation is serious stuff, and CHLA has the machine with the capability (and the people with the most expertise) to deliver exactly the amount of radiation Tiffany needs at exactly the location she needs it, and we want to keep exposure to the rest of her body to a minimum.