Three week radiation protocol

Five to seven weeks of daily radiation still seems to be the standard of care in the US even though it has been shown that a  3 week course is just as effective (see http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa0906260). Change comes slowly. Recently a mother of a  friend of Josh was diagnosed with early stage BC. It was a very small tumor, low grade and excised with surgery. Still they recommended 7 weeks of radiation.
What?! I have a little tumor. How about just  a little radiation?

I have sent her (third hand) ammunition  to request the 3 week protocol. She lives in a big city whose health facitlities I am not aware of. She is an executive for a large company so she's probably articulate and forceful. We'll see how that works.

UM never did it before I insisted on it. My rad onc did acknowledge that the rate of recurrence was the same but thought in my case the cosmesis (ha) wouldn't be as good and made me sign a paper saying I knew that. Now she thinks that it isn't so bad.

Poison ivy is spreading everywhere. Now I see vines of it hidden under the grapeleaves. Some of the leaves even look like grape leaves like Escher's drawings showing fish morphing into birds. I think we need chemical warfare now.

I was walking Maya the other day and met a new young mom with a son just 2 weeks older than Ms. Maya. She gave me some varigated cleome pods but for the life of me, I don't know what I did with them.

Last night I went to the Cooking for Survival class. The subject: gluten-free cooking. This didn't seem to have much to do with cancer except that the inflammation in the digestive tract due to the intolerance of gluten has been linked to various digestive cancers and lymphomas. A man there gave his history. Some of his symptoms sound quite similiar to a certain someone here with digestive issues. Most of the people who show up there are BC survivors but there was a new person there. She has stage 4 cancer but has made the difficult decision to forgo further treatment. Yikes.

Back at the dentist this morning to get my new crown. So much fun.