Lunar New Year has rolled around again. My resolution to accept any and all social invitations (within moral bounds) has meant that I've been pretty nicely occupied. Last Friday night was the faculty Christmas Dinner (Yes, I know), at which the band performed for the first time in ages. The music was well-received and I was complimented on how well I'm looking ('Honestly, Patti- I thought you were sick!') which was nice. Saturday morning I went into Seoul with my friend Lynn for errands and brunch, and then headed to see Annie for a few hours before the Robert Burns Dinner. It was my third year at the dinner, and I genuinely do not tire of it. Several work-mates came in, and there was haggis and poetry and high jinks and dancing afterwards. Lovely fun. If there is some dispute over the best poem in the competition, then far be it from me to suggest that the contest was fixed.
A short week at work followed, topped off with Happy Hour Tuesday evening at one of the new local restaurants. It would be nice to have more such events, as the three school divisions so seldom have opportunity to mix socially. We are hoping to have a few gigs in the coming weeks, so perhaps will be able to begin rectifying the situation.
Wednesday I moved the radiation treatment to the morning, and had dinner with friends in the evening. We ate fabulous Mexican food, and put to rest a very nice bottle of tequila that I had been given on my birthday weekend and that had remained untouched in my freezer in the hope that the giver would return to help consume it. I toasted the absent giver with affection and goodwill- that will have to suffice.
Yesterday's planned road trip with Tamarisk and Casey was postponed in the face of bad weather, but was satisfactorily replaced by brunch and martinis; the evening was spent wading my way through the first series of The Walking Dead. Once I reached the end, I looked up the episode guide and the latest seasons and have decided not to invest any more in it. Spoilers spoiled it.
As someone who doesn't watch much telly, I have had a few other series recommended by friends and am keen to start watching them. However, I am jiggered if I can remember what they are. This brings me smoothly into the latest note-worthy radiation side effects, starting with the memory gaps. I'm not losing my memory exactly, but there are definite spaces where I can see that the sun has bleached the wallpaper around the picture frames, if you understand my meaning. I know, for example, that I had a conversation last week in the faculty lounge about going on a ski weekend. I am pretty sure that I agreed to go, and possibly to share accommodation. I cannot, however, try as I might, remember who it was I was speaking to about it. I generally try to keep track of who I agree to share rooms with- it seems a good policy- but in this case, I haven't a clue. I may need to start writing these things down. The gaps are usually around conversations- either I remember the content of the discussion but not the characters in it, or I have perfect recollection of speaking to people and not the foggiest what it was about. I have taken to sending myself emails with messages and instructions just to make sure I don't neglect important reminders. I also found myself staring in bewilderment into the dryer the other morning, wondering why the clothes I expected to find there had disappeared. Only when I went into my room and saw my sweaters folded up on the dresser did I remember that I had spent several minutes the evening before folding and hanging the clean laundry. And clearly, not putting my sweaters into the drawer.
So far, however, the brain bumps haven't been too dramatic. Seven treatments left, though, so there is still time.
Otherwise, I have an interesting ache in the middle of my chest, and my breathing is definitely more laboured. I mentioned this to the radiologist when we spoke on Monday. He did not seem especially concerned, even though he is the one who warned me to be on the lookout for signs of pneumonia. He, too, had told me weeks ago that my heart and lung function would be impeded. I had been attributing all the wheeziness to this, not unreasonably, in my view. He seemed to think differently, as he ponderously explained again that my left lung would suffer 20% functionality loss (please recognize the accommodations I am making here for his English limitations), but that because lungs work pretty well at compensating for each other, this is not likely to be the cause of the changes to my breathing. Instead, he said:
'It is probably because of the menopause.'
My response was pronounced.
'What? Something else from the menopause? No! Nope. Not having it. I have had quite enough nonsense from the menopause. I am not having anything else!'
He could only laugh. I felt better about that, at least, having found him very humourless throughout our meetings and having managed to muster at least a wry grin from all the other medical professionals I've encountered there. Well, apart from the gynecologist. That man is beyond both my help and my ken. He says things about the usefulness and utility of various body parts associated with the hysterectomy that render me spitting and disinclined to make our encounters more pleasant. He doesn't deserve to laugh at me. The others? Ah, I'm hilARIous, as far as they are concerned.
Aaaanyway, back to it. I am, as usual, relatively side-effects free otherwise. The burns that I was told to expect have not appeared. (Do you suppose that they are giving me weak radiation, in addition to the weak cancer drugs that they apparently gave me while I was having the first version of chemo? Eye roll) I am still a little wobbly- as if my brain is somewhere left of centre. This is not too troublesome, as it also matches my politics. I have not fainted or been sick, despite some of the warnings I've received. The doctor has even told me that I can begin exercising again. This is great, but completely contrary to what I was told by the technician. Once again therefore, in the face of opposing or unclear advice from the people in charge, I have decided to do what I want. They also cannot agree on side effects, therefore, I shall not have any worth worrying about.
And bonus: having the convenience of TWO New Years upon which one can make resolutions, I can renew my vows to get back into a pattern of health and exercise that will not only combat the weebles-wobble-but-they-don't-fall-down sturdiness that I have acquired, but will prepare me for the reconstruction (+) surgery that I hope to arrange for June. Yep. Will be aaaaaalll about the health and exercise from now on. Starting Monday.
Well, it is the holiday, isn't it?
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Saturday, January 18, 2014
Am I glowing yet?
I have now had five radiation treatments, and I am still waiting to explore the full range of side effects. I am wheezy, most definitely, and found the recent heavy yellow dust day to be rather more uncomfortable than usual. Welcome to Korea. Occasionally, there are gripping pains in my chest or side, which I have been told to expect, and the skin around my nipple feels hot and a bit tender. I had a lovely cwtch with Phavana's boy, Santi, yesterday, and needed to shift positions more than usual due to discomfort. Walking the stairs at school without gasping is slightly challenging, but I am determined not to take the elevator, as it is really the only exercise I am getting at the moment. Four flights- gak, choke, pant... I am spending much more time in the faculty lounge on the second floor these days, so as not to need to trek up to the office so frequently.
Otherwise, I think that I am again getting off lightly. We will see. It could get worse. I have picked up a daily ritual with my classes: I shut off all the lights and ask them whether I glow in the dark. They assure me that I do not. I shall keep you informed of any changes in this, and shall provide photos.
The sessions themselves are uneventful: I take a taxi to the hospital, head to radiology, disrobe to my waist, put on a short cotton hospital jacket- pink, because clearly I am a girl- tuck my belongings into a locker and head round the corner to the seats that line the corridor. A lab-coated young man pokes his nose around the edge of a door and calls a pretty close approximation to my name, and I follow him to the far end of the hall, where an automatic sliding wooden door hisses open. Another few steps through an antechamber, and I turn the corner into the treatment room, where I drop my locker key and my phone into a plastic box and I clamber gracelessly onto the platform on the other side of the room. At the head of the platform is a dome, in some ways resemblant of the magical burrito from the MRI machine. My legs are placed on a prop, designed, I think, just to keep them still. I am laid out with my head on a second prop, and the young man is joined by a colleague. The two of them open my jacket and expose my chest. They tut a little, to see that the grid marks placed there previously have faded, and then manhandle my hips and torso into exactly the right position. When I am assembled to their satisfaction, they flip the sides of the jacket back up over me and stride out of the room.
Music is playing in the background. On weekdays, it seems, orchestral numbers are on the playlist. Yesterday, it was rockier and Korean. Above my head, there is a picture panel with blue skies, clouds and cherry blossoms; all very soothing. There is a click and a whir, and the platform raises about a foot. Surrounding it are two oddly shaped attachments: one with an end that resembles a probe, the other with a large circular end that lies parallel to the platform, but that moves around me throughout the process. I think that this it the device that actually zaps me. There is also a set of cameras in the room. One is directly above the platform, another is off to my left. I have not seen this one, but I know it is there because I have spotted a photograph of myself in the technicians' room as I have exited the corridor.
Another click. The platform shifts several times as somewhere off in the distance, the technicians remotely re-adjust my position. Then another whir and a bell. The contraptions around me start to move, the circular plate shifting to my left while the probe moves above my chest. It sounds like it is being wound up. I cannot really feel anything, but I am strangely aware that something is taking place. More clicks, and the plate moves up over my chest while the probe shifts to the right. At the centre of the circular plate is a large rectangular window. Through it, I see what look like long, thin metal teeth- they most closely resemble the metallic teeth on the mechanism of a music box. However, instead of being twanged by the ridges on a rotating wheel, they slide apart from each other in a strange, non-linear pattern of openings and closings. The winding lasts for about a minute, there is a snap and a re-adjustment as the teeth close, and then the motion is repeated. This happens three times, the whole process taking about five minutes. After a final click, I hear the air in the antechamber shift, and one of the technicians bustles back into the room. He pushes a button and the platform sinks back to its original position and he helps me sit up. I offer a cheery 'thank you!' and head out of the room, tying the jacket shut as I go. Everything is so business-like that I feel compelled to move quickly.
I throw 'See you tomorrow!' to the other technicians, return to the locker room to dress, and exchange farewells with the receptionists before leaving the department and taking the escalator to the main floor. Taxis await outside, I show the cabbie the card with the school address on it, and sit back for the fifteen minute ride back to Songdo. The cab journey is longer than the treatment has taken. My mouth tastes like porcelain on the ride back and my face feels flushed. Any other reactions wait, and I only really notice them absentmindedly. Perhaps I have a bit of a dizzy turn, or the room shifts a little when I look at my feet. So far, it does not feel any worse than that.
So, all that being comparatively uneventful, what else is happening? Well, the promotion I was lined up for at work has fallen through. We were going to open residences and I was going to be directing the program. You're clever- you can see that the use of the past tense indicates a shift. There will now be no new residences, for reasons that I shall not go into here. I have been told that if they do ever happen, that I will be running them, which is only small comfort, considering how excited I was about the prospect of getting back into administration (management, Brit-types). Honestly, it felt like my lungs were able to fill up with air properly again. Now, the brief hope is extinguished- no promotion. So, what will I do next year? I cannot yet leave Korea. As much as I try to come up with a route out, none really exists yet. There is no school anywhere that would pick up a candidate with three months remaining of her cancer treatment, and mine is set to continue until October. So, I stay another year for my health. The risk is that I will never get back into leadership after four years out of it, therefore, I will finish the damned Masters, making myself marginally more attractive as an employment prospect. Then, I will see how it goes. Next year, I will resign. I will attend as many job fairs as I need to to find another job, preferably a promoted post. If I do not find one, well, then I will take a year out. I will get yet another Masters, in a subject that I LIKE, such as creative writing or literature or history or some such, whether it will do my career any good or not. I will then start applying again for international jobs, because it's actually rather fun working overseas, and I can quite clearly not go back to the UK.
Then I will see what happens next.
In all that, I maintain what Rich used to call a 'rigid commitment to flexibility'. 'Cause if the last year has taught me nothing else, it is that making plans is like spitting in the wind- you have no idea where it will end up, but likely it will be on your face. Let the dice fly high!
Otherwise, I think that I am again getting off lightly. We will see. It could get worse. I have picked up a daily ritual with my classes: I shut off all the lights and ask them whether I glow in the dark. They assure me that I do not. I shall keep you informed of any changes in this, and shall provide photos.
The sessions themselves are uneventful: I take a taxi to the hospital, head to radiology, disrobe to my waist, put on a short cotton hospital jacket- pink, because clearly I am a girl- tuck my belongings into a locker and head round the corner to the seats that line the corridor. A lab-coated young man pokes his nose around the edge of a door and calls a pretty close approximation to my name, and I follow him to the far end of the hall, where an automatic sliding wooden door hisses open. Another few steps through an antechamber, and I turn the corner into the treatment room, where I drop my locker key and my phone into a plastic box and I clamber gracelessly onto the platform on the other side of the room. At the head of the platform is a dome, in some ways resemblant of the magical burrito from the MRI machine. My legs are placed on a prop, designed, I think, just to keep them still. I am laid out with my head on a second prop, and the young man is joined by a colleague. The two of them open my jacket and expose my chest. They tut a little, to see that the grid marks placed there previously have faded, and then manhandle my hips and torso into exactly the right position. When I am assembled to their satisfaction, they flip the sides of the jacket back up over me and stride out of the room.
Music is playing in the background. On weekdays, it seems, orchestral numbers are on the playlist. Yesterday, it was rockier and Korean. Above my head, there is a picture panel with blue skies, clouds and cherry blossoms; all very soothing. There is a click and a whir, and the platform raises about a foot. Surrounding it are two oddly shaped attachments: one with an end that resembles a probe, the other with a large circular end that lies parallel to the platform, but that moves around me throughout the process. I think that this it the device that actually zaps me. There is also a set of cameras in the room. One is directly above the platform, another is off to my left. I have not seen this one, but I know it is there because I have spotted a photograph of myself in the technicians' room as I have exited the corridor.
Another click. The platform shifts several times as somewhere off in the distance, the technicians remotely re-adjust my position. Then another whir and a bell. The contraptions around me start to move, the circular plate shifting to my left while the probe moves above my chest. It sounds like it is being wound up. I cannot really feel anything, but I am strangely aware that something is taking place. More clicks, and the plate moves up over my chest while the probe shifts to the right. At the centre of the circular plate is a large rectangular window. Through it, I see what look like long, thin metal teeth- they most closely resemble the metallic teeth on the mechanism of a music box. However, instead of being twanged by the ridges on a rotating wheel, they slide apart from each other in a strange, non-linear pattern of openings and closings. The winding lasts for about a minute, there is a snap and a re-adjustment as the teeth close, and then the motion is repeated. This happens three times, the whole process taking about five minutes. After a final click, I hear the air in the antechamber shift, and one of the technicians bustles back into the room. He pushes a button and the platform sinks back to its original position and he helps me sit up. I offer a cheery 'thank you!' and head out of the room, tying the jacket shut as I go. Everything is so business-like that I feel compelled to move quickly.
I throw 'See you tomorrow!' to the other technicians, return to the locker room to dress, and exchange farewells with the receptionists before leaving the department and taking the escalator to the main floor. Taxis await outside, I show the cabbie the card with the school address on it, and sit back for the fifteen minute ride back to Songdo. The cab journey is longer than the treatment has taken. My mouth tastes like porcelain on the ride back and my face feels flushed. Any other reactions wait, and I only really notice them absentmindedly. Perhaps I have a bit of a dizzy turn, or the room shifts a little when I look at my feet. So far, it does not feel any worse than that.
So, all that being comparatively uneventful, what else is happening? Well, the promotion I was lined up for at work has fallen through. We were going to open residences and I was going to be directing the program. You're clever- you can see that the use of the past tense indicates a shift. There will now be no new residences, for reasons that I shall not go into here. I have been told that if they do ever happen, that I will be running them, which is only small comfort, considering how excited I was about the prospect of getting back into administration (management, Brit-types). Honestly, it felt like my lungs were able to fill up with air properly again. Now, the brief hope is extinguished- no promotion. So, what will I do next year? I cannot yet leave Korea. As much as I try to come up with a route out, none really exists yet. There is no school anywhere that would pick up a candidate with three months remaining of her cancer treatment, and mine is set to continue until October. So, I stay another year for my health. The risk is that I will never get back into leadership after four years out of it, therefore, I will finish the damned Masters, making myself marginally more attractive as an employment prospect. Then, I will see how it goes. Next year, I will resign. I will attend as many job fairs as I need to to find another job, preferably a promoted post. If I do not find one, well, then I will take a year out. I will get yet another Masters, in a subject that I LIKE, such as creative writing or literature or history or some such, whether it will do my career any good or not. I will then start applying again for international jobs, because it's actually rather fun working overseas, and I can quite clearly not go back to the UK.
Then I will see what happens next.
In all that, I maintain what Rich used to call a 'rigid commitment to flexibility'. 'Cause if the last year has taught me nothing else, it is that making plans is like spitting in the wind- you have no idea where it will end up, but likely it will be on your face. Let the dice fly high!
Saturday, January 11, 2014
Something old, something new.
School has been back in session for a week now. I am trying to avoid answering questions about the break because I am so glad to see people again that I tend to overshare about how it all went. Ok, perhaps my lack of appropriate boundaries or internal monologue are the reasons why I overshare, but the issue remains the same: I'd rather be at work.
The shocking discovery this summer that I am actually more extroverted than I'd ever suspected (What?? I LIKE people???) was confirmed again over the Winter Break. I timed the operation so as not to interfere with school, which remains good reasoning in my mind, and there were people around while I was here so that I was not utterly cut off from human contact. There were some very pleasant hours, in fact. Christmas Eve was spent with friends and their newborn, and I had Christmas dinner with a lovely bunch of colleagues- and another newborn, as it happens. It wasn't great having Annie away, though, and I was certainly aware of my solitary status- uncomfortably so.
The visit to the surgeon was on Christmas Eve, and as you know, contained all good news. Seven months after him telling me that I 'could' have cancer, he was smugly affirming that the margins were now clear, and admiring the bandage that I'd put on over the drain; he even suggested that I could come and work for him. Ah, how far we've come.
We shook hands solemnly when I departed, and I pointed out that it was the last time I'd see him. 'Come back anytime you want!' he exclaimed. Which was nice. And a little odd.
The Herceptin treatment on Boxing Day was as standard as it could be. I gave the oncologist and the cancer ward techies some candy canes, and all the next appointments were made without incident. I wasn't as knocked flat by this treatment as the one on Thanksgiving, so was able to... Lord, I can't remember what I did afterwards on Boxing Day! The action and adventure is so non stop, that I clearly can't keep track of it all. I may have gone to buy some new dishes or something. I have some new dishes, and obviously I got them somehow. Maybe that's when I picked them up.
The next evening I left for Bali. Again, a completely non-eventful departure and journey. The airport in Denpasar has undergone huge renovations, but the queues were horrendous- far worse than I'd seen them before. It honestly wasn't until I was standing in one that it occurred to me that it was just two years ago that I was honeymooning there. At that point, surrounded by all the laughing twenty-somethings and couples and families, I made the first of my New Year's resolutions:
I will never honeymoon in Bali again.
Seems reasonable, and pretty easy to keep. It was not the last resolution of the week.
The driver, Surya, was waiting for me outside the gates. Feels like we go way back now, as he drives for me whenever I go. We toddled out to the villa and he left me there with instructions to rest and relax for the next two days, and that he'd pick me up in time for dinner on Monday evening. Rest? Relax?
By the end of the first day I was twitching. I have never been very good at resting.
Actually, let's take that whole rather long, dull story and make it short, shall we? Bali is beautiful. I did not have a great time, however. I think, in honesty, that the break may have pushed me near the edge of a place I don't want to visit- and I am not talking about Indonesia. Blame the medication, perhaps, or the (still very recent) hysterectomy, or the fact that it has been a pretty flipping tough year. Whatever it is- yikes. It shouldn't be a surprise that things are a struggle at the moment, should it? The hormone issues on their own would be enough to excuse a certain amount of... Lord, what is this?
I have the attention span of a cocker spaniel. Even typing this entry has taken me three days so far, and I'd planned to submit it as soon as I returned from Bali. I am constantly anxious. My heart seems jittery, and loud noises are intensely irritating- not great when working with middle schoolers. I remain hurt and saddened by a failed relationship that I ought to have recovered from by this time. I am so pleased to see people that I talk over top of them in my enthusiasm, and can sense them pulling away. My moods are all over the place- I can be giggling inappropriately one minute and sobbing the next. I either sleep for ten hours or three and a half. I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat; when I wake up again, it is in a hot flash. If this is all down to the cancer treatment, then fine- but I would love to know that it will pass!
On the plus side, my hair looks great. Whether I will keep it this short, I do not know.
Radiation treatment starts Tuesday. I went in on Thursday for a CT scan and to get some bright blue grid marks mapped out all over my chest, with the instructions not to remove them. I am trying, honestly, but they are all wearing off regardless of my best efforts. The radiologist has told me that I will have thirty-three treatments, as opposed to the twenty I was scheduled for the last time they'd planned them. Also, each treatment will take twenty minutes, and not the five he'd indicated last time. I'll just show up, I think, and they'll let me go when I'm finished. The good thing about the radiation is that I can pop along at my convenience. Well, and that it will keep the cancer from coming back. That will also be a good thing.
It all should be wrapped up, then, the first week in March. There really is no way that I'm going to keep those grid marks in place until then! I guess that once it's all finished, I won't have any excuse to continue writing this. Life will return to a wonderful normality, whatever that will now look like. In another few months, Annie will be heading off to university (if the little minx ever gets her UCAS forms completed), and I'll be here waiting out the next year, hopefully with a new job nicely underway. What happens after that is anybody's guess. All the plans I've been making have been quite decisively thrown out the window, so it feels foolish to pick up and make many new ones now.
I guess I'm just adrift at the moment, trying to get used to the changes in my system and the crazy shifts in the path. Things will settle down; things will become clearer. I hate hearing my constant complaints- and they are louder inside my head, believe me. I received word this week that a very good friend from college died from breast cancer on the second of January. A few months my junior, we met when I transferred to Moncton during my third year. She made the last year and a half of my degree a far more pleasant place to be. She was simply a wonderful human being, and I do not understand the vagaries of a universe that allows someone as lovely and necessary as she was to suffer so much more, let alone not live, when I have emerged so unscathed. No bullshit here about how there's a bigger plan afoot for me, or that I have been spared for a reason. It feels like a lottery- a big, cosmically perverse lottery.
The shocking discovery this summer that I am actually more extroverted than I'd ever suspected (What?? I LIKE people???) was confirmed again over the Winter Break. I timed the operation so as not to interfere with school, which remains good reasoning in my mind, and there were people around while I was here so that I was not utterly cut off from human contact. There were some very pleasant hours, in fact. Christmas Eve was spent with friends and their newborn, and I had Christmas dinner with a lovely bunch of colleagues- and another newborn, as it happens. It wasn't great having Annie away, though, and I was certainly aware of my solitary status- uncomfortably so.
The visit to the surgeon was on Christmas Eve, and as you know, contained all good news. Seven months after him telling me that I 'could' have cancer, he was smugly affirming that the margins were now clear, and admiring the bandage that I'd put on over the drain; he even suggested that I could come and work for him. Ah, how far we've come.
We shook hands solemnly when I departed, and I pointed out that it was the last time I'd see him. 'Come back anytime you want!' he exclaimed. Which was nice. And a little odd.
The Herceptin treatment on Boxing Day was as standard as it could be. I gave the oncologist and the cancer ward techies some candy canes, and all the next appointments were made without incident. I wasn't as knocked flat by this treatment as the one on Thanksgiving, so was able to... Lord, I can't remember what I did afterwards on Boxing Day! The action and adventure is so non stop, that I clearly can't keep track of it all. I may have gone to buy some new dishes or something. I have some new dishes, and obviously I got them somehow. Maybe that's when I picked them up.
The next evening I left for Bali. Again, a completely non-eventful departure and journey. The airport in Denpasar has undergone huge renovations, but the queues were horrendous- far worse than I'd seen them before. It honestly wasn't until I was standing in one that it occurred to me that it was just two years ago that I was honeymooning there. At that point, surrounded by all the laughing twenty-somethings and couples and families, I made the first of my New Year's resolutions:
I will never honeymoon in Bali again.
Seems reasonable, and pretty easy to keep. It was not the last resolution of the week.
The driver, Surya, was waiting for me outside the gates. Feels like we go way back now, as he drives for me whenever I go. We toddled out to the villa and he left me there with instructions to rest and relax for the next two days, and that he'd pick me up in time for dinner on Monday evening. Rest? Relax?
By the end of the first day I was twitching. I have never been very good at resting.
Actually, let's take that whole rather long, dull story and make it short, shall we? Bali is beautiful. I did not have a great time, however. I think, in honesty, that the break may have pushed me near the edge of a place I don't want to visit- and I am not talking about Indonesia. Blame the medication, perhaps, or the (still very recent) hysterectomy, or the fact that it has been a pretty flipping tough year. Whatever it is- yikes. It shouldn't be a surprise that things are a struggle at the moment, should it? The hormone issues on their own would be enough to excuse a certain amount of... Lord, what is this?
I have the attention span of a cocker spaniel. Even typing this entry has taken me three days so far, and I'd planned to submit it as soon as I returned from Bali. I am constantly anxious. My heart seems jittery, and loud noises are intensely irritating- not great when working with middle schoolers. I remain hurt and saddened by a failed relationship that I ought to have recovered from by this time. I am so pleased to see people that I talk over top of them in my enthusiasm, and can sense them pulling away. My moods are all over the place- I can be giggling inappropriately one minute and sobbing the next. I either sleep for ten hours or three and a half. I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat; when I wake up again, it is in a hot flash. If this is all down to the cancer treatment, then fine- but I would love to know that it will pass!
On the plus side, my hair looks great. Whether I will keep it this short, I do not know.
Radiation treatment starts Tuesday. I went in on Thursday for a CT scan and to get some bright blue grid marks mapped out all over my chest, with the instructions not to remove them. I am trying, honestly, but they are all wearing off regardless of my best efforts. The radiologist has told me that I will have thirty-three treatments, as opposed to the twenty I was scheduled for the last time they'd planned them. Also, each treatment will take twenty minutes, and not the five he'd indicated last time. I'll just show up, I think, and they'll let me go when I'm finished. The good thing about the radiation is that I can pop along at my convenience. Well, and that it will keep the cancer from coming back. That will also be a good thing.
It all should be wrapped up, then, the first week in March. There really is no way that I'm going to keep those grid marks in place until then! I guess that once it's all finished, I won't have any excuse to continue writing this. Life will return to a wonderful normality, whatever that will now look like. In another few months, Annie will be heading off to university (if the little minx ever gets her UCAS forms completed), and I'll be here waiting out the next year, hopefully with a new job nicely underway. What happens after that is anybody's guess. All the plans I've been making have been quite decisively thrown out the window, so it feels foolish to pick up and make many new ones now.
I guess I'm just adrift at the moment, trying to get used to the changes in my system and the crazy shifts in the path. Things will settle down; things will become clearer. I hate hearing my constant complaints- and they are louder inside my head, believe me. I received word this week that a very good friend from college died from breast cancer on the second of January. A few months my junior, we met when I transferred to Moncton during my third year. She made the last year and a half of my degree a far more pleasant place to be. She was simply a wonderful human being, and I do not understand the vagaries of a universe that allows someone as lovely and necessary as she was to suffer so much more, let alone not live, when I have emerged so unscathed. No bullshit here about how there's a bigger plan afoot for me, or that I have been spared for a reason. It feels like a lottery- a big, cosmically perverse lottery.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
