Cancer Treatment is Mostly Driving, The Squeakquel

Having radiation treatments is taking up the time I would normally use for blogging. Also my levels of vim, vigor, and overall awesomeness are somewhat reduced. You deserve better, Reader, I know you do.

I am tired. My first treatment was last Wednesday, so today was treatment 7 of 28. Oh dude, is that one-fourth of the way there? Sweet. At first I thought I was tired from the mental stress associated from the idea of being, you know, irradiated (I found it unsettling) and the whole commuting/logistical enterprise. As of today though, I am pretty sure that the actual radiation itself has a fatiguing effect. I think my body, in some way, is going, "OMG stop that right now quit it WTF???" Like I'm going into powersave mode. I feel fine all day and then by early evening, it's a bad case of the can't-help-its.

Tonight my sister called me and said, "Hey, I sent you a text and you didn't respond, just wanted to check on you." And I protested that I had texted back, yes I had, but then I remembered that I'd gotten almost finished composing the message and then had decided to take a rest before hitting send. Because my thumbs and my eyeballs were tired from all that exertion.

Or, another example: I am watching "House Hunters," but I am not feeling up to shouting at the house hunters the way I usually do--the way they deserve. People, please do not tell us that you are looking for a beach house, then buy the place the farthest from the beach. It kills me. And also, the way you're always saying, "This will be great for entertaining!" with that aspirational-yet-smug emphasis on the word. Like you'll be hosting a chamber music recital in that breakfast nook. Please stop.

So energy levels are down but whining and bitchiness levels are spiking.

The deal is, my radiation appointment is every weekday at 11:30. I drop Hank off at school at 9:30, and once I'm down by the school it doesn't make good sense to go home before making the forty minute drive down to the hospital. But I can't go straight on down there because I would arrive way, way early. So there's some time-killing required, then the drive down there, the treatment, which lasts thirty seconds, and the drive back up.

Then it's the same timing situation in reverse: I arrive back up in my neck of the woods a full hour before it's time to get Hank. No sense in spending 25 minutes of that driving on to my house and back to the school, so more time-killing is in order. Then Hank, then home, where all the stuff I would normally do in the morning (emailing, blogging, coffee-drinking, straightening, whatnot) is undone, only I don't want to do another thing.

I went by myself for the first two days, which was a bummer. Then Matt went with me, then my parents came to town, and now Betty is on the scene to keep me company. So it's pleasantly social.

Really it's my attitude that needs an adjustment. It's totally going fine--the effects of the radiation, like sunburn or arm stiffness, are cumulative and I haven't seen any yet. So it's all good so far.

In a perfect blogworld, the whole scene at the radiation oncologist deserves a couple of posts where I tell a whole story about the experience and all the characters there, and I try to get all edumacational about what it's like and give you something useful. But boy that just sounds like a lot. The edutainment angle on my radiation treatments is made more difficult by the fact that I barely have a grasp of what is going on. It is like actual rocket science.

I will say that the technician who helps me onto the table is named Omega. I found that ominous.

I have missed you guys this week and I thought of you every day. What are y'all doing? I know preschools have started up. Kids are settling into big school. The acorns are falling. I hope you are feeling fine. That is all I have; my thumbs are really SUPER tired. xoxo-B