Last Day

25 Days.  Finally.  Done.  

My radiation treatment drew to a close this afternoon during an all-too-appropriate rain storm in midtown Manhattan where scaffolding was my umbrella.  Similarly appropriate was the shot I took in my right butt cheek earlier in the morning, to start the day off right.  My skin is red and sensitive but not peeling.  Nurse Barbara tells me I will be tired all week and my skin will get worse before it gets better.  But doesn't everything?!  I don't care.  Not having to go north of 14th Street for another month is the greatest gift of all.

So I was sick in bed all weekend.  (What did you do?!)  I caught a virus a few weeks back that I have not been able to shake.  As my radiation technician put it, my "immune system has been a little busy."  Nurse Beth tells me it's going around and many of her patients have been worried that there is something terribly wrong with them because they get it, feel better, and then get it again.  As did I.  And the cure is to stay in bed for a week.  Who does that?!?!  It's not as fun as one would imagine.  It's not all movies and books and catching up on email and phone calls because my head hurts and I can't read or think and I hate all actors right now because I'm not one anymore.  

But my super-hero husband and his mom came to the rescue and I got two days in bed.  I was restored enough to get up this morning to make breakfast and lunches for the kids and get them off to school dressed, with teeth brushed, homework in their backpacks, and snack for 30 kids for Michael to carry.  After that, all I needed was two Advil and a taxi to get me uptown for my shot before I came back downtown for a nap.

Nurse Beth didn't recognize me, she's not the first, and I haven't been able to shrug these off yet.  Now that my hair has grown in a tiny bit, I am going out without my scarves on.  Some mom friends saw my head last week during a hot flash, saw that I have hair, and told me to stop wearing my mom's kerchief from 1976.  But now if I run into someone who is not expecting to see me, they don't seem to recognize me.  Or maybe they do but they are so overcome with disbelief and sadness that I had cancer and my thick long hair is now completely gone, not just hypothetically hiding under a piece of fabric?  Because I don't know for sure, I don't know whether to introduce myself or just play along or... what would some other options be?  Should I be wearing a name tag?

Also, as pathetic and superficial as it sounds, I really do miss my hair.  I know the little pixie cut is "cute," but I'm not sure how well I pull off cute.  I've never been a "cute" girl, my name is not Zooey, and I look ridiculous in knee-high socks.  I much prefer a black leather jacket over a black ensemble with some boots.  Add a pixie cut and sunglasses to hide behind, and I end up looking a little angry.  Not cute at all.  Plus, it's not even a hair cut.  It's hair growth.  Yuk.  My wig will be another option as soon as October decides to stop acting like mid-June.  But there's definitely no such thing as global warming.

But you know how you really know you are a cancer patient?  It's when you are on the radiation table, receiving your final treatment, and you find yourself dreaming about the kale salad you are going to eat for lunch.  Then, still on the table, you have a hot flash.  And then, still on the table, these lyrics come through on the speakers from the Cancer Center playlist:

"Cause you had a bad day 

You're taking one down

You sing a sad song just to turn it around..."

The nurse who comes in to take the sheet off your naked boob hears the end of the song and is mortified.  She apologizes on behalf of everyone but you tell her it's ok because it actually made you laugh, not cry.

And that's how you know you are a cancer patient.

BECAUSE LIFE IS NOT ALL RAINBOWS AND CUPCAKES!!!

(Right, Boehner?!)

Sick Again

And miserable. Too much crying and feeling sorry for myself. So I am playing this awesome game that my girl Katharine made for me.

When I get five in a row, I'm supposed to buy myself something nice. In the past twenty-four hours, I've bought out the fifth floor at Barney's. 

Two More Days of Radiation

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. 

Cancer the Emperor

Because I have questions, so so so many questions, and because it is a Pulitzer Prize winner, I am about to crack open the book Emperor of All Maladies - A Biography of Cancer. But I am only able to do this because Michael graciously took the girls horse back riding and someone has to stay behind to wait for a furniture delivery. With perhaps an hour of complete quiet, save for me, the birds, and the insects, is this really the book to sit with?  I'm trying to be strong against its 470 pages and gruesome subject matter. But something compels me. So here I go.