What's new, you ask? You'll be sorry!

How are things going? You'll be sorry you asked! I finally finished radiation, my 5-days-a-week zapping, on Wednesday January 28th. I even received a certificate of completion from the staff. My last chemo, for this round at least, was Tuesday January 27th.

So now I am on a break. A 3-week break, until February 17th when I go back for more chemo. This next time it will be a regular dose, not the weekly low-dose of chemo I've been getting since early December. I'll get another 3 weeks off, then more heavy duty chemo on March 10th. End of March, I'll get a PET scan (I have to wait that long for the radiation effects to settle down) and we'll see what impact the treatment had on the tumor.

Wheee! I get a break! Am I skipping around, kicking up my heels, living life to its fullest? NO! Why? BECAUSE I FEEL REALLY CR@PPY! I am more tired than when I was going to radiation every morning at 8:00! The last 2 mornings I've slept in....1pm yesterday, 11am today. My ribs ache from coughing so much. My throat gets all constricted when I try to eat, and if I do get 2 bites of something down, it sticks in my esophagus and feels like a heart attack until I wash it down with warm water. I can't drink anything cold or carbonated, else I get the dagger-in-the-esophagus feeling all the way down. My radiation oncologist said it will get worse before it gets better, but this is ridiculous!

I haven't showered since Monday and I know I stink. I've taken more Percocet in the last 2 days than I've taken all during treatment. I'm miserable and I want to eat pizza and sip a gingerale but it is too painful.

Did I tell you you'd be sorry you asked how I was?

My friend Janet called me a few months ago, I think it was in late December. I hadn't posted in a while, and she knows I like to put a positive spin on my blog posts, so she was concerned about me. And she was right. At that time I was really wiped out from the weekly chemo, and I didn't have a lot of nice things to say. So I wrote nothing.

But today I've been thinking about that conversation with Janet and I thought, maybe I should try a little honesty. What do you think? TMI? Or honesty is good? I guess I wouldn't mind complaining if I could just find something funny about it. The only really funny thing is my hair, which hasn't been washed in days. I have wicked "bed head" and I look like a homeless person. (Believe it or not, I still haven't lost my hair. I'm happy about that, at least! It's been thinning a bit but not falling out in clumps. I do expect by March it will be gone. This next chemo will be pretty strong so I think that will be the final blow.)

I'm sure in a few days I'll be feeling better. By Sunday, I hope, because we're hosting a little birthday tea party for Frances (she turned 5 on February 2nd) and 6 of her preschool friends. I'll need to be showered and presentable by then. And maybe the party will give me something positive to write about!