Today was my last day of treatment. Dad drove me to the hospital. I saw a dentist about some tooth pain I’ve been having from rads and she prescribed me some special tooth mousse to use on sensitive areas. Then I had my last radiotherapy session. I was so eager to just get it over and done with. The novelty really wore off very quickly after I started rads. Today I counted the 6 radiation beams down. In my head I was saying “6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1” and it seemed to go quite quickly. It also helped that the mask wasn’t excruciatingly tight on my face like it had been last Friday.

After they took the mask off and I got off the table, I asked for my Brooke Fraser CD back and asked whether I could keep my face mask. The therapists were happy to oblige but then I changed my mind because I realised I don’t want any reminders of this experience and I wouldn’t know what to do with the mask once I got it home. Frank had suggested using it as a mould to create a paper mache version of my head but I think I’d rather never see that mask again! haha

After treatment I had an appointment with the nurse which was pretty pointless since she told me to take panadol for the throat pain. The pain is more than just a sore throat you get with a cold, it’s excruciating and more like having internal burns and no one seems to really understand how painful it is except my doc. I wanted to say to the nurse “lady if the strong painkillers I’m on aren’t working, wtf would panadol do?!” but I just nodded and smiled.

I think I’ll stick to my solution of distracting myself from the pain and only eating soft food. Last night I took only one Endone painkiller and within minutes I was dizzy, light-headed and lethargic. It was then that Nick decided to play Wii bowling against me and he had a serious advantage since I couldn’t even stand up straight. It was like competing at sport with a drunk person! Haha. The Endone really knocked me out and I was asleep by 9.30pm.

Today after we left the hospital, Dad and I had planned to go get ice cream at Trampoline in Brunswick St but when we got there it was shut! So it was a rather anti-climactic day in terms of celebration but there’s always my party on 22 September. By then I’ll hopefully have the energy to stay awake past 10pm too and actually enjoy the celebration.

Thanks everyone for your ongoing support and kind words, especially Uncle Oscar for calling me today to say congrats on my last day of treatment.

See you all at my party!