Three through Eight

I just don't know how to put this eloquently - this is really fucking depressing.

Or is this just a mood swing from my menopause?  Or am I just tired from radiation?  Or is having cancer just depressing and there's no way around it?  Yes, I think that's it.  I think I just have to walk right on through.

So radiation.  Here's the deal.  After I change into a hospital gown, I take my arm out of the left side and lie on a table in front of a large machine. The technicians find the three tattoo marks on my chest and line up my torso while my left arm is raised above my head and my head is turned to the right, out of the line of fire. The machine is programmed specifically to my body and my scans and X-rays so it knows exactly where to aim so as to avoid my heart and lungs.  When I'm all aligned, the technicians leave the room, reminding me not to move a muscle, and they close behind them a huge vault door so they are not exposed.  To the radiation. That is aimed perilously close to my heart.  Then the machine is turned on and some sort of large disk moves around me into four or so different positions. A loud sound goes off for roughly two seconds or 24 seconds or 34 seconds and I don't feel a thing.  Except fear, but who really gives a shit.  Four minutes later the gang comes back in and I'm all done and they will see me tomorrow.  And the day after that and the day after that.  I should probably start bringing them bagels.

When I go to change, I notice in the mirror that my left breast is a little swollen so now I am beautifully aligned.  Today was the first day I noticed redness and I'm told that will only be getting worse but they gave me a calendula lotion that I apply every day and then some.  I leave The Cancer Center and the concierge who checks me in gives me a great big smile and a wave and says "See you tomorrow, sweetie!"  It is heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time.  I walk home to get in a nice 45 minute cardiovascular and plug into some podcasts.  Sometimes I hear gut wrenching stories that remind me that I could have it worse.  A lot worse.  But in this particular frame of mind, that is not consoling.  

I have your emails to return and texts to return and phone calls to return and I might get to those but I might not.  I am so so sorry.  I'm not a very good friend right now.  I don't know what I am right now.

Two

My Grandad Seikaly died of a stroke at the age of 62. So did his father. So this morning when my dad woke up and said the room was spinning and then he felt dizzy for another hour, neither one of us felt like taking any chances.  We put the two girls in a cab with us and headed to the emergency room at St. Luke's.  Because hospitals don't scare me anymore but losing my dad does. 

A few hours, and many "Wash your hands!" later, we head across the street to my mother-in-law's apartment to eat lunch. Dad was discharged. The doctor determined he was not having a stroke.  We were both very, very happy to be wrong.  And the girls were very, very hungry.

Shortly after returning everybody home and giving dad a rest, Della and I made our way up to The Cancer Center for my second radiation session.  I don't need assistance, but it is very nice to have the company. It's also a nice 45 minute walk and I made up for my missed my therapy session this week by talking Della's ear off.  I was too worried about dad to think at all about radiation but maybe that's the way it should be. And then I got the news I've been waiting to hear for months (ok, years).  My sister Kate is having a girl.  I jump up and down on the sidewalk and scream and maybe even squeal, I don't remember.  But I leave the worry state and move over to elation.  Then I breathe an extra sigh of relief because there was a good chance my brother-in-law was going to kill me for prematurely shipping 27 boxes of girls clothes to his house.  But now I get a medal. 

I also see this on my way to The Cancer Center.  Not that I believe in signs or anything.

One

It is 8:30pm and I am exhausted, though it has less to do with my first day of radiation and much more to do with two visits I received from Willa in the middle of the night last night. Thankfully my dad is here.  She has been told to visit him tonight instead. 

And though I wouldn't describe it as enjoyable, lying on the radiation table today was not nearly as bad as a hundred other things I've done in the past six months.  It's all about lying as still as possible while your left arm, raised above your head, falls asleep and grows numb and large machines with green laser lights whir around you and lob radiation at your breast with modern precision. But I have a much greater appreciation for the technology since reading last night's chapter in The Emperor of All Maladies.  As fate would have it, it was about the history of radiation and how it came to be used to treat cancer. But, as with anything, there was a period of time before people discovered how dangerous exposure was. As there was a period of time before doctors understood the importance of sterile surgical tools.  Thankfully our doctors no longer carry their scalpels around in their pockets or pick them up and continue working with them after they've dropped into a pool of blood on the floor.  Yes, there are many, many things to be thankful for.

I am enjoying this book immensely, mostly for the constant reminders that we are the beneficiaries of all of the medical experiments and discoveries that came before us.  And also for the history lesson.  And also for finally understanding where the Pap comes from in Pap smear.  It might be a little morbid of me to be reading it now, but I just finished The End of Your Life Book Club, so I'm on a morbid streak. 

24 more treatments. 

Hot flashes also bring cold flashes and why are they called flashes when they last so damn long. 

But my hair is coming back and today I wore mascara.