We have progress.

May 22 was last day of radiation treatment. Feels like the PMH staff are my friends/colleagues now. ha!

Went to neuropsych appointment yesterday, and had a battery of tests done. Will find out later if I have drain bamage. Today was ENT appointment; got my sinuses shop-vac’d and doc got a good peek into the sphenoid sinus- apparently it looks good in there, but healing still takes its sweet time…. my voice may be changed permanently due to the more uh.. spacious interior made by renovation…? I hope it clears up a bit, or I will forever sound stuffed up and I will be forced to become a blues/jazz singer.

Tomorrow will be my first day that I do not have a medical appointment since before April. This may call for some sort of celebration…. of the quiet, slow-moving variety. Sigh. I am still crossing my fingers and hoping that by June 15, I will be feeling oodles better. And since oodles is such a great word, I almost feel better already.

So, now i’m home, got my morning coffee at 2:25 p.m., and I was just gauging how i feel to figger out what i should do next. The result, I actually do feel a speck better than average lately.. i’m hoping this is because there are more days distance from me and rad and i hope that keeps on being the trend!!! But still not to overdo it just yet.. might do a bit of household stuff/cleaning, might take a nap (altho i usually never actually get there when i say i’m gonna).

So yeah.. little bit little bit i’m still not okay enough to go jump and play on the monkey bars (Ebby) but FEAR NOT I will get there, and hopefully in good coincidence with the good weather that IS on its way

Today was the 3rd last rad treatment. They replaced the tubing on the mouthpiece so it wasn’t as awful as it was last week with the poor suction and drying of my mouth. I also had my last weekly review with Dr. BOS today. He told me that I should still expect my hair to fall out in chunks; I thought I had gotten lucky because I hadn’t lost any that I’ve noticed so far.

I will be getting an MRI in about 6 weeks and a follow up appointment then. I will also be continuing to see the ENT specialist, as the sinus healing bit is the most aggravating next to the effects of radiation. Dr. BOS’s description included advanced medical terminology such as “there’s a lot of crud in there still being produced that has to work it’s way out”. I will also be going to see the neuro-psychologist next week.

I don’t have much else to say today, someone was just bugging me to update this. I’m tired and it’s Advil o’clock.

I wrote an entry for this blog this morning but unfork the net went down and I wasn’t able to save it. It was full of all the good things that have happened to me recently, and all the warm happy feelings I’ve been having, and how much I’ve learned and grown through my experiences.

bwa hah ha ha ha! ok not quite.

I think it was actually about the thing I’m learning that I wasn’t prepped for through research or medical expert advice. They did tell me that the side effects of radiation would show up after about 2 weeks into treatment. What they didn’t tell me (or I didn’t pay attention to) was that the side effects are cumulative, and continue to get worse until about 2 weeks after treatment stops. I’ve been quite nauseous for the past few days now, worse than before. So much for counting down the days; I think I’ll just zone out every chance I get and chant mantras for a month.

This week has rather left me in awe at the sheer continuity of one thing after another firing at me. I’m sure I will weather it; if you know me you know I’m not made of straw - but it’s still chapping my ass (if those of you of more gracious readership will pardon my candor).  My tolerance is low at the onset of the day, but I’m experiencing Murphy’s law to what seems a full extent. I wish it would get to the point of numbness, but somehow and evilly, it’s not. I wish I could stop feeling & caring after a certain point of pain & disbelief, but nay - onward ticks the clock and the marches the calendar with a fresh new round of wtfIdon’tneedthis for every day .. today it was my car. Again. This time the clutch broke on the highway ramp enroute to radiation. (As I write this, I am immediately impassioned to lobby for OHIP to cover limosine service for all out-patients requiring frequent treatment. I then have thoughts of people who must exist that may struggle much harder than I do to get to their appointments due to their circumstances.) So with my usual acknowledgement that ‘It could have been worse’, I tell you that it ruined my day. My day that would have been glorious otherwise, happily going to my happy radiation appointment and happily going home and happily pushing myself to get my happy daily living requirements met so I can happily go back to bed to sleep off the happy headache. Glorious! Stupid clutch. Stupid everything. June 15. That’s the day I’ve picked to focus on. So happy thoughts to gloss over today - The CAA truck showed up in decent time and no one got hurt in the awkward busy place I had to pull over; I didn’t miss my rad appt; Peter’s garage rocked as much as ever and patched up my poor old car & it turned out to be quite a nice catch-up visit despite my incessant twitching due to short-circuiting neural patterns that really must weird everyone out.. Yes I jest.

Maybe.

Who needs to do their taxes or plant soil-starved seedlings in the garden anyway? The world and its order will have to wait yet another day for a spark of energy.

It seems like I’m not keeping up as much with the updates. Seems like I’ve been a lot more tired/grumpy lately. And if you know me at all, I tend to hermit at times like this. Unfork, these times are stretching far beyond any temporary mood inconvenience I’ve ever had to endure in the past. So hiding out in my cave to weather the storm can only work for a little while before it propogates its own destructive patterns. (more…)

Afternoon appointments are so much more palatable - (more…)

Time for some positive news, I guess… don’t want the reader polls to swoop. hehe (more…)

Oops, looks like I haven’t updated the blog in a bit. Here’s the update:

• Today: I went to a radiation appointment. I’m really tired. (more…)