How do you treat a Brain Tumour?

First Radiation and Chemo Experience

Something I wanted to talk about once I had my schedule and knew what my treatment would be was, well, what my schedule is and what my treatment will look like. Your Chelsea has become a walking pharmacy and I want to share about it!

My first radiation treatment was today and I couldn't help but laugh because they were playing Stronger by Kelly Clarkson during it. Like it's a nice song and all, but it felt kind of inappropriate. Here's a picture of me all buckled up to the stretcher before they made everyone except me leave the room:

I think I was on the bed for a total of 15 minutes, and the radiation lasts for about 2 minutes at a time. The rest of the 15 minutes is the machine making sure I'm in the right position so it radiates Chad and not important cells.

Things that were going through my head while I was getting my first treatment:

• What a time to be alive

• They're literally firing photons into my brain right now

• Boi if they don't stop playing Stronger by Kelly Clarkson I'm going to lose it

• *singing along with Stronger by Kelly Clarkson, but muffled because I can't move my face*

• This mask is nice, it's like a weighted blanket for my face

• Die chad, die with poison and radiation

• I wonder if one day this treatment will be considered archaic

When the radiation was running, I could taste metal and after I had a bit of a headache so overall not too bad but I wouldn't recommend it. I am expecting symptoms to get worse as time goes on as the radiation will cause brain swelling, which will exasperate my existing symptoms.

The Medications

Introducing Chelsea Finnigan, walking pharmacy! Now producing biohazardous waste and in colour! In front of me are eight different medications for a total of 12 different pills I get to take during the day. Here's what my daily schedule looks like (if you're not interested in reading a bunch of medicine names you can skip to the next section, my radiation schedule to learn when everything will be happening!):

9:00-9:30 am: I take 50mg of Desvenlafaxine (this is the only one that's not new, it's an anti-depressant I've been on for a while! I'm glad to have been getting treatment for my mental health for a while now, it has made me much better equipped to handle having a brain tumour.) I also take 4mg of Dexamethasone (A corticosteroid that helps me manage my symptoms and bonus points, my hay fever), and 40mg of Pantoprazole (a stomach liner so the rest of these drugs don't destroy my innards more than they have to)

3:00 pm: I take 4mg more of Dexamethasone (manage those symptoms! I wake up exactly 12 hours after my latest dose of Dexamethasone without fail. Sleep is interesting)

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday: Sulfamethoxazole/ Trimethoprim 800mg/160mg (A heavy-duty anti-biotic because I am very at risk for infections right now as chemo will make me stop producing white blood cells. I am not allowed to take probiotics or eat yogurt, as introducing foreign bacteria is a bad idea. RIP digestive health.)

The rest of my medications are dependent on when I get my radiation treatment on any given day.

3 hours before radiation: Stop eating

2 hours before radiation for the first week then we re-evaluate the need: take 4mg of Ondansetron (a preventative anti-nausea medication that will help with nausea from chemo and radiation)

1 hour before radiation: 130mg of Temozolomide (this is the fancy name of my chemotherapy drug. This is the Chad murderer. Poisoning me slightly slower than Chad, but it's a good thing I'm a lot stronger than Chad!)

After chemo and radiation/ as needed: 10mg of Prochlorazine (this medication helps with nausea and vomiting if I experience it. So far so good but the first week is supposed to be kind of hard.) And lastly Lorazepam 1mg (this boi right here be for panic attacks. I've taken maybe 5 in my life, but knowing I have it there helps me manage my anxiety really well!)

Radiation Schedule

It's all over the place! My treatment times are so random. I took out all my personal information, but here you can see the times they gave me. I'm currently working on figuring out how I'm going to safely get to all these appointments! I'll need vaccinated people (or Andy) to drive me until my second dose of the vaccine fully kicks in on May 20th, because I literally could not be any more at risk right now.

But Wait, There's More

My last radiation session is on June 10th, and I should get an MRI shortly after that (that'll look really bad because it will show all of the swelling from the radiation) (also hopefully I'll be able to get my hands on a copy of my MRI soon and post it!) but THEN I get to do 5 days of Temozolomide Chemotherapy every 28 days for a year with an MRI every 2 months. Then once that is all over I will hopefully get to ring this fun bell!

And then after all that is said and done, all we have to do is pray/ hope/ vibe/ manifest /energy whatever you want to send my way that Chad never ever comes back because if he does that's when things get really scary.

Anyway sorry for the super long post! Hopefully, it was informative. I'll definitely have more updates as my treatment progresses. This week I am grateful to have a freezer full of ready to eat meals because the first week is supposed to be super hard. I wanted to add, I'm feeling very grateful to the people in my life because my amazing friends got me a gift for every day of my treatment, so I have something to look forward to when I come home from "The Spa". I am so lucky to have an amazing army of people to support me and get me through this! Every message, card, flower, and gift I have gotten has meant the world to me. Thank you, everyone, so much 💕