Just one more

Oh, happy day!! I have 1 more radiation to go, and then the Radiation Completion Dance of Joy can begin. Have I mentioned that I hate radiation? I know it’s a love/hate relationship—after all, it IS helping to make me well—and also trying to kill me. It makes me incredibly tired. It makes the burn on my back sting, ache, and itch like a %$#^. It makes swallowing difficult. But with only 1 more to go, I’m confident that I’m going to survive this battle, although for a while there, I wasn’t so sure. Weeks 3 and 4 were especially hard, and I was really struggling. The original plan was to have 30 treatments, and I will end up with 36. I don’t know why, maybe they just like to see me squirm. (After giving this a little thought, it occurred to me that maybe the tumor was stubborn and didn’t shrink fast enough, or maybe the lymph nodes needed a few more zaps than originally planned. Doesn’t matter. Once again, I’m following the doctors on blind faith, since their medical degrees are probably more up to date than mine.)

Despite the radiation, I’m not feeling any worse now than I was a week ago, which surprises me some. I thought that I’d be feeling more and more fatigued all the time, a little worse every day until the radiation was over. It seems that I have reached a “fatigue plateau” and just stayed there. Hey, I’m not complaining at all, this level of fatigue is mostly tolerable. In fact, some days I have a surprising amount of energy and can do things like walk the dog and pay the bills (not simultaneously). Napping during the day is now a rarity, instead of an everyday occurrence.

Earlier this week, I cooked dinner (first time in weeks!) and we had real food. Yes. I could eat the shrimp, green beans and the bread without much pain, but the potato…well, there’s one in every crowd, I guess. In these last few days, I’ve noticed that I can eat more things with less pain than last week. YEEHAA! Soon, I’ll be off soft food and can make up for all this lost time! (Just after I wrote the previous line, I was having dinner, and bit down on something hard. Yes, it’s another cosmic joke on me: I’ve broken a tooth, all the way to the gumline; it feels like about ½ of the tooth is gone. And it’s a holiday weekend. Of course.)


Tooth notwithstanding, I feel pretty good. Because I feel as good as I do, I know that the good thoughts, prayers and the get-well vibes that I’ve received are definitely working. Without them, I’d be a skinnier and even more lethargic mess. Thanks for doing what y’all do.  ¶ 7:00 AM