And Two From Column B

Tired today. Very tired. I only got about six hours of sleep last night, even with the sleeping pills. But at least I didn’t end up like Heath Ledger. What a shame! I’ll always remember him with his ink-stained teeth in The Patriot whenever I think of him.

But I almost napped this AM before my appointment, and slept three hours after I got home.

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BTW, my last meeting with Dr. P. before chemo on Monday had him ask if that had been my sister with me the last time we had talked. I said yes, her and her husband from Denmark. He didn’t say anything else about it. ????

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I started to be proactive with my skin care, so I dug out my vitamin E crème that Amy likes so much and applied some today. When I got to the treatment room I asked about skin care and where the beam was actually going to affect my skin.

The technicians there, three ladies named Amy, Amy, and Paula (just to be different), are great! They’ve always been cheerful whenever I was there. Today I complimented them, Amy and Paula, on how well they work together. Great communication, very fast, and fussy. When you’re going to be running all that radiation through my body, I want you to shoot straight, and be fussy about setting up the target, ME!

BTW, here’s a couple of links to images of the equipment that they are using.
They can image and treat with the same piece of equipment. And they can modulate the beam size to shape it so that they can miss the important stuff and dump as much radiation on the stuff that needs it. Sub-millimeter accuracy!!

So, the techs set to work and diagrammed for me where I’ll need to medicate myself at least four hours before treatment. I thought that you might like to see where and how big an area we are talking about so I took a photo when I got home. I look like one of those photos explaining why you don’t leave the kids at home with magic markers. But, that’s the size and shape of the tumor. They’ll adjust the aperture differently for the treatments from the left and right sides. I can barely touch the spot they’ll use on the right. The left isn’t too bad to get to.

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I did take on Nettie's challenge and found several panels in her quilt that had what I thought might be errors in them depending on her standards. NEVER ask an old QA guy to inspect your work!! I sent two emails but she hasn't replied yet. I hope that she's not mad at me! :-D

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I thought that since I was hungry today that things had gotten better. Apparently not. I stopped on the way home and picked up a pint of Chinese chicken noodle soup and an egg roll. I barely got an eighth of the soup in me when the tumor started acting up. That ended that meal. Back to the Ensure.

We should name this tumor! We could have a contest with prizes to the winners and runners-up. I could send you pieces of whatever we name him perfectly preserved in alcohol for you to put on your shelf. What do you think? I wonder if I can set up a poll on this software.

In the mean time, I started the “Late Diarrhea” phase of my chemo. I had two choices, early within 24 hours, like almost immediately, or later after the 24-hour period was up. I didn’t want to make a choice, but apparently that wasn’t in the game plan. As I said, a battle of side effects.

In addition, while lying in bed, I did get a sharp stabbing pain in the lower left back, above the hip but below the kidney. This one might be the back pain they warned about. We’ll see how things turn out tonight.

And my taste buds are starting to fade, I think.

Kunolunkwa!

Edit Note: The picture of my chest had been taken in a mirror so I had to reverse the image to portray my tumor accurately. 1/26/2008

"As a juror, I will exercise my 1000-year-old duty to arrive at a verdict, not just on the basis of the facts of a particular case, or instructions I am given, but through my power to reason, my knowledge of the Bill of Rights, and my individual conscience. When needful, I will judge the law itself." -L. Neil Smith