Day 111 of the overall journey, Radiation Day #5, Day 1 of Jay’s newest attempt to count correctly. Still not King of Freedonia. (Thanks to Carole Stokes for the title suggestion)
I was up early this morning to drive my youngest to his 5am shift at work. He is learning to drive but the times have slowed our progress on the road together. I remind myself to accelerate the process every Monday when my alarm goes off at 4:25am.
After a wonderful weekend of NOT having to take my chemotherapy pills, it is time again to throw down four 500mg capsules this morning along with my other meds and spend some quality time with my radiation therapists and the linear particle accelerator that makes Trogdor scream like Commander Sonak during his fatal transporter accident.
My appointment is early in the morning and, as I mentioned, takes very little time compared to the travel, check-in, and machine set-up. I lay face down pondering my life choices as the billion-dollar whirlygig machine does its whirring and humming and buzzing. I can’t see it from my position with my face in a small bucket. I feel a little like my own action figure stuck in a blister pack. I know from the sounds where we are in the process. When the big buzzer sounds, the machine is live and my bare ass is being exposed to the life-saving death ray. In the time it takes to nuke a Hot Pocket, I’m done for the day.
The treatment consultation for something like this plays out like a commercial for a new drug. With the doctor, it is all positive and supportive. It’s like the big bright sunshine day where I’m to “ask my doctor” about this new miracle drug or procedure that will cure everything from my ass mass to my poor disposition. After that, I am handed over to a nurse with five pages of potential side effects that COULD occur while using said product or service, delivered in a converted supply closet with no windows with a signature line to document that every last bad thing was shared with me.
Meanwhile at home, my diet consists of mainly bland foods with a few indulgences, like ice cream. Saltines settle my stomach and tend to navigate the Trogdor toll bridge without much problem. “Spicy” for me these days is Spaghetti-Os.
Horror stories and advice are plentiful on this journey and I have to provide gentle reminders to people that, like this blog, we are all on our own journeys and one’s health, age, history, and circumstances can make yours entirely different. From sitting in the radiation center waiting room, I know I’m in a good place relative to some patients who don’t come in on their own power, people who are hit harder by their disease to the point they are non-communicative. Some come in like me and we chat like we’re waiting for a dental check-up, but we’re the lucky ones. And we seem to know and appreciate that.
Part of my treatment is having fun and being a wise ass. That’s not to say I would be mean or a jerk to people – I have been more polite and grateful to the people in my life than I think ever in the past half-century – but to find the humor in everything, including having a power line with a camera fed up my ass while I’m bent over a sawhorse or pointing my naked, hairy ass at a billion-dollar Death Star laser in front of two perfectly innocent human beings fresh off their breakfast.
It is important to laugh. It is important to find reasons to smile, to anchor your day in hope for the distant future by surrendering to the belief that the days will get better. At least, that’s my mood today. Your mileage may vary.
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