Cyberknife Radiotherapy
Next up in my treatment plan was undergoing Cyberknife Radiotherapy to my skull. Now if you’ve read my post https://www.backsbrainsandboobs.com/blog/it-was-a-no-brainer you’ll know that in August 2020 I underwent brain surgery to have the 2cm secondary tumour that was growing out of my skull removed. I couldn’t of really had a better result with this surgery, but my surgeon wasn’t able to do as planned and scrape out the inside out my skull…lovely eh! The purpose of this would of been to remove any remaining cells that could potentially have regrown but during surgery there were too many exposed muscles and nerves to contend with and it would of caused permanent damage.
So what do we do to ensure we have got rid of any remaining cells? Cyberknife! It sounds scary, painful and threatening but honestly is was the complete opposite. It’s completely painless and the most incredible piece of kit that I am so grateful to have had access to at my hospital. Cyberknife radiotherapy essentially sends extremely high energy x-rays into the location of the tumour which accumulate throughout treatment and zap the bastard away! Its a targeted treatment which means they can pinpoint exactly where the x-rays get sent; something very important in the location of mine as it was close to my optic nerve and preserving my sight was a concern.
Firstly, I had a face cage fitted to ensure my head remained still the whole time. This is made from a mouldable plastic and, despite looking like something out of Friday 13th, it really wasn’t that scary. To be honest having it made felt like a really shit facial, having warm plastic over your face. And then the incredible stuff happens. The week prior to my treatment, my clinical oncology team actually programme the whole thing using a simulation of my head created from an MRI and CT scan I’d had. This meant they could pinpoint exactly where the x-rays went in, do test runs to ensure it’s safe, calculate dosages and when I went in for treatment all they did was press play….queue mind blow! I had cameras on me the whole time so any slight movement the cameras spoke to the machine and it would readjust…queue second mind blow! And because they could calculate safe dosages in the simulator they were able to see I could afford to have 3 high doses instead of 5 smaller doses so three days on treatment later it was all over….BOOM!
The treatment itself was so simple. Go in, lie down for half an hour and let the machine do his thing. I made good friends with my Cyberknife machine during treatment, I called him WALL-E and I thought he was pretty cute popping around; as you’ll see in the video below. Now, a week after treatment, the post radiotherapy fatigue has set in and it is pretty brutal. But I’'m so grateful to have had this life saving treatment and to The Royal Marsden Charity for fundraising as hard as they did to build this guy and let patients like myself have a chance of living they life they want x
