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I had my first radiation treatment today.

As they instructed me at my "sim" appointment, I checked in at the front desk, where the nice lady sent me to the radiation waiting room.

When I saw my first initial and last name on the board, I walked out of the waiting room, took a right, took another right, took a left and went down the hall where the "green machine" is. The actual machine isn't green. The tag outside the door is green.

There was a guy in the hallway with a nametag on his shirt. So I asked, "Are the green dressing rooms in the treatment room or farther down the hall?"

"They're farther down the hall, right there," he said and pointed to the door of the first dressing room.

I thanked him, went in and put on my hospital gown.

Then I sat on the bench and waited.

Well, I scrolled through an Instagram account called "pastagrannies" where older ladies make homemade pasta. Don't judge. Everybody has something that helps them relax!

A tech came to the door and knocked. I said come in, and she opened the door like she had no idea who I was.

She asked my name, and I told her. Then she asked, "Did anyone walk you back here?"

"No," I said. "Were they supposed to?"

"Well," she said, "for the first appointment, somebody usually meets you at the waiting room to walk you back."

"They went through all the instructions at my sim appointment, so I just did what they said," I told her. "Am I in the right place?"

"Yeah, but nobody ever remembers what we tell them at their sim appointment," she said. "I'm just surprised that you back here and ready to go."

I kinda laughed, but then when we walked into the treatment room, she proceeded to tell the two techs in there about how I came back there on my own and was just waiting in the dressing room.

What can I say, I'm good at following instructions.

For the treatment, I just laid on the mold they made last week, listened to the music and waited for the machine to quit circling me.

So I guess I'll go back again tomorrow.

Then I'll take two days off.

Then I'll go back Monday ... and Tuesday ... and Wednesday ... you get the point.

I'm not dead in a ditch

 I called my mama the other day, and she didn't answer the landline at their house. Then she didn't answer her cellphone. So of course, that meant she was dead in a ditch.

She called me back that afternoon, and I told her that it's crazy that if we can't reach someone on the phone, it can sometimes cause us to worry like that.

Well, I haven't been dead in a ditch or off the grid. I've just been waiting.

... and waiting

... and waiting.

Finally, this week, I'm getting to move forward. My radiation treatments start Thursday afternoon. They'll be five days a week for 6 1/2 weeks. That's 33 sessions.

I went for my "sim" appointment last week. That's like a trial run where they get everything set up. 

In the process, they took a CT scan. And then, and this was really weird, they took photographs. It was unnerving to have someone hold a digital camera above my chest and snap several pictures. Even though I know it's for medical purposes, it just seems wrong! They better not show up on the 'Gram!

After that, they put this squishy beanbag under my head and shoulders. It was filled with those tiny little beads. They'll be working on my right side, so I had to turn my head to the left. Then I had to bend my right arm at 90 degrees and raise it above my head. Once I assumed the position, the two techs in the room started pushing the beanbag up close to me, almost like they were forming it around me.

Well guess what? They were.

After they ran the CT, I sat up and realized that the outline of me was still in the beanbag. I reached over to touch it, and it was hard as a rock. That's the mold they've been talking about. They'll put that beanbag on the radiation machine for each of my appointments. Well, I don't guess I can call it a beanbag anymore. It's now officially an upper body mold.

On a side note, I've had video appointments with two different nurses, a P.A. and the radiation oncologist. When I've talked to the P.A., for some reason, I got the impression that she's tall. I'm not sure if it's because her phone was lower than her eyes and she was looking down or what. But when I finally met her in person last week, she walked in the room, and I didn't recognize her at all! She's about my height — 5' 3"! It's like when you pick up your cup and take a big swig, thinking it's water, but it's actually Sprite.

The process every day will be dropping my car with the valets at the door. Did I mention that they have free valet parking? The check-in desk is right near the door. They'll ask me the COVID questions and take my temperature, then they'll send me to the basement. That's where the radiation department is. There, I wait for my name to pop up on the screen, then I head to the green machine.

Apparently, there are different color machines for different intense-ness of the treatments. I'll start on green and move to yellow later. And the color has nothing to do with the machines. They're the colors of the room number signs.

So I guess I'm ready to go.

Ceiling panels add the appearance of blue skies.

There's not much free wall space in the treatment rooms, but there are swatches of wallpaper with trees and flowers. I guess the addition of nature is an attempt to be soothing.

An array of ailments

I've been staying home. I figure that's the best way to not get COVID or the delta variant. Or anything else that's going on right now. People forget that there are still just plain 'ol viruses, and colds and the flu out there, too.

So my protection has been to stay put.

Of course, Jeff and Griffin have to be out and about. Jeff hasn't found a full-time job yet, but he's working part-time at a couple of places. And of course, Griffin goes to school.

But I remind them all the time, please be careful. If I get sick with anything, it will probably postpone my radiation treatments, and I'm on pins and needles waiting to get them started.

Jeff said, "For people who have been vaccinated, the number getting the delta variant has been about 1 in 5,000."

I looked at him, and we both laughed. He knew what I was about to say.

"Dude! I've had whooping cough, fifth disease and breast cancer. Talk to me," I said.

It's true. I've been the recipient of a lot of weird things.

I'm left-handed, which they say is hereditary, but we can't find any other left-handed people in my family.

I've had multiple kidney stones. It's also said to be hereditary. Nobody else has had any problem.

When Jeff and I were first married, I got shingles. It was under my chin, on my cheek and behind my ear. The headache I had with that stuff was some of the worst pain I've ever felt. 

He helped me get washed up in the shower so I could go to the doctor. He washed one leg and was starting on the other when I threw up on the one he had already washed. I immediately burst into tears. I felt awful and was just so emotional. The doctor hooked me up with meds for it, and it eventually went away.

I had fertility problems. Then when it was time for the boy to get here, he showed up a month early, and I had to have an emergency C-section.

When Griffin was little, he brought home fifth disease from day care.

According to the CDC, fifth disease is a mild rash illness caused by parvovirus B19. This disease, also called erythema infectiosum, got its name because it was fifth in a list of historical classifications of common skin rash illnesses in children. Symptoms include fever, runny nose, headache and rash. The rash may be on your face. It's often called “slapped cheek” rash.

And Griffin had all those things.

And then you read: People with fifth disease can also develop pain and swelling in their joints. This is called polyarthropathy syndrome. It is more common in adults, especially women. Some adults with fifth disease may only have painful joints, usually in the hands, feet, or knees, and no other symptoms. The joint pain usually lasts 1 to 3 weeks, but it can last for months or longer. It usually goes away without any long-term problems.

Griffin and I had it in July when he was 2 or 3. Some friends took me out for my birthday, and the knuckles on my hands were so swollen, Jeff had to cut up my food and open my presents.

One winter a good many years ago, I got a cough and couldn't shake it. It just got worse and worse. Turns out, it was whooping cough. Of COURSE it was!

I had to register myself with the local health department because they keep track of those types of diseases. They said that whooping cough cases had increased because of anti-vaxxers. Their kids weren't getting basic vaccinations, then they were coming in contact with whooping cough and getting it. The world is a small place now. It's not hard to come in contact with people from all around the world. If you could've seen the way I coughed, there is no way you would ever wish that on a child.

In 2015, my appendix ruptured. It couldn't just get inflamed and send me to the hospital. Noooo. It had to explode before I got to the hospital. I went to the urgent care center that's run by our doctors' office. The doctor, for whom English was her second language, pushed down on my side and let go. And when she let go, I almost came off that table.

She said, "Ay, Dios mio!"

And I wanted to say back, "I don't know a lot of Spanish, but I know what that means! It means, 'Oh my God!'"

Surgery followed.

Griffin was young enough not to really understand the whole situation, and when Jeff said, "Hey, let's go see Mama at the hospital."

Griffin said, "No, thank you."

Jeff said, "Why not?"

Griffin said, "'Cause I just don't want to see her surgery."

He thought that I would be in surgery from the time I got to the hospital until the time I left. Jeff convinced him that wasn't the case, and they came to visit.

I was up for a walk, so I did a couple of extra laps with just Griffin and me so he could see that I was ok.

Next came hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which I've already talked about.

And now breast cancer. My great aunt on my Mama's side of the family had breast cancer in her 60s. Other than that, it's nowhere in our family. 

I mean, I know for things to become hereditary, they have to start somewhere, so why not with me?

My Daddy asked me recently why I get everything instead of my brother. 

I had asked my brother that very question, and he said, "'Cause you're tougher than me."

Tough or not, I'd be happy to let someone else have a turn with the weird ailments.

Moving forward

Well I guess I just needed to cry and complain to get the ball rolling.

The radiation people called me yesterday to set up appointments. I have a video appointment on Sept. 21 and a sim appointment Sept. 22.

The consultation will just be to make sure they have all the information they need, and I'm sure they'll explain everything to me. The sim appointment will be a run-through. They'll figure out placement for the radiation and make marks to make sure I'm in the exact same position for every treatment. Sometimes they make molds to help with that. I'm not sure whether they'll make an arm mold or not. I guess we'll see.

I think yesterday was therapeutic. 

Things have been flowing right along, and then I hit that wall. Jeff was so sweet ... as he always is.

So I guess we're moving forward. Not quite as quickly as I had hoped, but forward is good.

Impatience and worry

I had a pity party today. Jeff was at his part-time job. Griffin was at school, and I was struggling to get all the work done that needed to be done today.

I managed to get through everything, but then the tears started. 

There wasn't one thing that was causing them. There were about a million. And they all hit at once.

I got my good news last Friday (no chemo), so now I'm waiting for the radiation people to call me. They said the would make the mold for my arm two weeks after surgery. Well, you don't give an exact time to someone who is a born planner. Because two weeks came and went, and I never heard anything.

I realize they had to wait on last Friday's test results, but what are they waiting on now?

I know logically that all of this takes time and schedules and all of that, but my emotions are not having it! Now, now, now!

They found microscopic cancer in one of the five lymph nodes they removed. Are there more in there? We don't know. How fast do they spread? We don't know.

Hence, the impatience.

Everyone just needs to hurry up!

Good news

I got some really good news today. I don't have to have chemotherapy! Woohoo!!!

I agreed to have a test done on the tissue they removed during surgery that gives a good prediction of whether your cancer will come back at some point. The test results are on a scale of 1 to 100. If your result is 25 or above, they suggest you get chemo. Lower than that, radiation should be enough.

My only fear about the test was getting a result of, like, 23. Something that was right at the breaking point.

But luckily, my result was a 5. It was the first time I was glad to have scored a 5 out of 100 on a test.

This whole process has flowed so smoothly so far, but there was a bit of a hiccup on getting the results on this test.

They told me I'd hear in 10 days. So I counted up 10 days and waited for results. Then I realized that it said 10 "business" days. So I counted those days up and waited for results. That should've meant that I got results yesterday. But I didn't.

I can honestly say I haven't been stressed out about getting the results. I've been more impatient than anything. I just want to get on with whatever treatment is required.

But when today dawned and I still hadn't heard from anyone, I started to get a little antsy. And I realized that since it's a holiday weekend, that would probably mean hearing nothing until Tuesday.

I have the direct phone numbers for two nurses at the cancer center, so I called one of them today and left a message. I told her about how yesterday was 10 business days and just wondered if the results ever came back later or if she knew who I should call to check on it.

She called me back within an hour with the result.

I answered the phone, and this perky voice on the other end confirmed it was me, then said, "I have some good news for you."

She told me the result, and I felt my shoulders move down away from my ears, and I exhaled a big breath I didn't realize I had been holding.

This is really good news. 

I went through my Big Binder of Cancer Resources and marked through the pages that weren't applicable to me. And today, I got to cross off a very important one!