Thursday evening

22 zaps down!!! 3 zaps to go!

I have been feeling better - though not perfect - since taking Imodium on Sunday. Big D seems to have moved on and, if anything, the opposite problem seems to be lurking. Man what a sign of getting old... to have to spend so much time thinking about, worrying about, dealing with and even - sorry - sharing all of the foregoing - about your own bowels. Geez. There is a Jewish prayer that traditionalists say every morning as well as after every use of the toilet that thanks god for creating man with "many openings and cavities," going on to say that "It is obvious and known before your throne of glory that if but one of them (those openings and cavities) were to be ruptured or but one of them were to be blocked it would be impossible to survive and to stand before you." Ain't that the truth!?!

My radiation schedule was changed this week - yesterday I went in at 7:30 am because we were supposed to get a snow storm - 8 - 16 inches they said. The whole state freaked out. In the end we got 3 inches or so where I live although I think down on the shore they got 4 - 6.

I learned that when you finish your radiation treatment, there is an old-fashioned bell - the kind you pull a rope to ring - across from the nurses' station on the radiation floor that you are supposed to pull. That tells everyone in the department that another patient has finished his or her treatment. They all come out of the woodwork and applaud you. And you are handed some kind of little scroll, like a diploma. Of course, my "graduate school" is another round of chemotherapy, but I will be glad to put the radiation behind me.

I think the main thing about the radiation treatment that makes it handleable (if that's a word) is that each day it only takes 5-10 minutes. It's possible to relax, deep breathe, and frankly just avoid thinking about the giant machine that is rotating around you for that short period of time. It zaps you from below, then from the left, then from the top, and finally from the right. You can hear it whirring while it's working. I always wonder if the whirring is a person pushing a button for some period of time, or if the machine has automatic settings - this patient gets 8 seconds of zap, that one gets 12 seconds of zap. I wonder, because the length of the whirring doesn't always seem to be the same. I've even tried to count to see if the side zaps are longer than the top and bottom zaps. I guess I could ask, but I think the whole thing is just an exercise I go through to keep my mind occupied during the zapping. The room in which the zap machine is located has panels painted with peaceful woodland type scenes on them all around the top 2+ feet of the ceiling. So when you lay back to be zapped, and look up, you see woodland scenes above you in every direction.

I had been going to radiation for 10 days or so before I realized how big the room was, and the other stuff that was in it. All I saw before then - and really all I ever look at still - is the table I lay on, the machine, and those woodland scenes. I have made 2 friends through the 22 radiation treatments - M and L, the two women with breast cancer whose appointments are at or around the same time as mine - and we've agreed to stay in touch after the treatments are over. M is from Atlanta originally.

Anyway, I'm doing okay. Perhaps beginning to sense a rising .... emotion (not sure what emotion at this point) in response to the knowledge that Chemo is Coming. Maybe a week or two break between radiation and chemo isn't a terrible idea after all.

Peace.