Skip to main content

Cancer free ... but Wait!!!

Today, I'm half-way through my radiation treatments. Ten down, ten to go.

Yep, you read that correctly. This "I'm Cancer Free" celebrator discovered, that while there is not detectable cancer seen on my MRI or from surgery I get to enjoy 20 rounds of radiation. Just to make sure.

I wasn't buying it initially. I talked with the radiation doc, my medical oncologist, my surgeon, my nurse practitioner, another Triple negative survivor, my hubby, my sister, my manager and even my dog. The closest I got was that I know myself best but the docs know cancer.

Even Wally, that lovable pup, wasn't buying it. His silence was traitorous. 

So, I reluctantly began with visions of Chernobyl sugar plums dancing in my head. Interestingly enough, as I began my hubby was just ending his radiation treatment for prostate cancer. No one could accuse us of not knowing how to live???? We radiate. 

The zap sessions, as I like to call them, are quick enough. The prep, however, is the time consumer as I get geared up for less than 5 minutes of radiation. The first step is to put on on an attractive hospital gown backwards. I then lay on a custom mold on the table and the staff adjusts it to fit perfectly. A breathing apparatus is put in my mouth, a clip on my nose and I put on glasses that show a video screen that guides me to breathe at certain times and to hold my breathe for others. Once it's all set, the techs leave the room and the radiation begins. Surreal.

Only ten more to go!

Comments

It's not a popularity contest, but ...

The meaning of success and how

I sat down to write today about being cast/boot free. It is a joy to be back to my 'normal' state of mobility - which is to say that I stumble and totter like a drunken sailor but at least now I'm not wearing a big black boot. Ahoy matey! But instead, I came across the above quote and being easily distracted, I began to think about it instead. (Heck, I'm tired of the damn cast and don't want to waste anymore time thinking or writing about it anyway.) It's a quote my Aunt Bonnie first introduced me too when I graduated from high school and it's come on my radar many times since then, but today for some reason it has given me pause. I laugh often, to be sure. I'm like the uncle in Mary Poppins - I love to laugh. I surround myself with people that make me smile and laugh and am grateful for a husband that still knows how to make me laugh. I'm not to sure about winning the respect of intelligent people, though. I tend to think out of the box and...

The summer that wasn't

It's July 30. Summer, right? Wrong!!! In Michigan, we had our summer two weeks ago for about 10 days. Saw a recent post on Facebook that read:"You know you're in Michigan when you wear your bathing suit on Monday and your parka on Tuesday." We sweltered for a week or two and then were chilled again. That's where we are now. Chilling at 70. Weather aside, it no longer feels much like summer. The back-to-school ads, commercials, displays and talk have begun full-force. And I feel like I just got used to having the three-not-so-little Piggins home again and now I have to get them ready for school. Delaney has a little longer, but Michael leaves for Wayne State law in two weeks and Matthew for his sophomore year at DePauw in three.  I get the nest re-feathered and damn these 'baby' birds but they stay for too short a time then fly away. *sigh* Since this is the "glass half full" blog of a pseudo-Pollyanna, I will revert to thinking positively ...

The "I'll Nevers" of growing older

  Years ago as a freelance writer, I submitted an essay entitled "The I'll Nevers of Parenting". It was a list, mostly, of things I had said prior to having children and the crow I was then eating because of the stupidity of the claims. You know little pearls of 'wisdom' that only someone who hasn't experienced the joys of  parenting could utter, like: I will never yell at my child in public or I will never let my child eat dinner in front of the television or my children will never stay up past 9 pm. I yelled at my children (usually when we were both tired and totally irrational!) in public. One time, as we were in the drop off lane at school with a long line of cars behind us, the boys hoped out of the car but Delaney was insisting on something that for the life of me I cannot recall and I was insisting that she get out of the van. We crept along, van door still open, until I got to the end of the line and yelled at the top of my voice, "Delaney get the...