Unexpected Beauty

The calendar tells me it has been a whole almost two weeks since I finished my last radiation treatment. My burns, while still pretty spectacular looking, are beginning to heal; instead of angry red, the skin is leaning towards maroon and brown. 

Fatigue is what it is. I am grateful naps are an option.

Yoga has saved my range of motion. *whew*

I think I SHOULD be in a happier place. But, no.

I'm tired of cancer. Unlike the Litany of Saints we used to sing in church, which, when done well, lulls one into a lovely meditative state, my litany of pains is a tedious and melancholy list. *sigh*

The heat wave receded this weekend, and I took advantage of the cooler weather to get out in the yard and clean up the multitude of weeds which had flourished in the heat. 

I stepped out Saturday morning to see a cluster of Naked Ladies, also known as Surprise Lilies, in the corner of the back yard. These flowers seemingly sprout from nowhere during the hot days of summer; they have no surrounding foliage - only a stem and the beautiful pink blossom, thus the name. 

Gazing at their beauty, working in the dirt, cleaning up the beds, my litany of pain evolved. 

For the beauty of the flowers, I gave thanks.
For the cool breeze, I gave thanks. 
For last week's rain, I gave thanks.
For a body healed enough to sit on the ground and weed, I gave thanks.
For the sight of my dog, gleefully wriggling on his back in the grass, I gave thanks. 
For the knowledge my cancer is currently NED - in hiding and on the run, I gave thanks.
For the fluffy white clouds, effortlessly floating in the sky, I gave thanks.

For the song of the birds, I gave thanks. 

For the chance to live THIS day, I give thanks.

Radiation: Complete

That's done!

I saw one of the residents after my last radiation treatment, and several times, he noted I've had 20 treatments, "so far". Each time, I corrected him - I've had twenty treatments, and I'm DONE. The distinction didn't seem to matter to him, not that that matters. I understand it.

I showed up. Yay, me! 

I quickly figured out, if I did yoga after a session, I could mostly loosen up what the radiation tightened up, so I mentally created a required part B to each treatment day and headed to the gym after I got zapped. My strategy worked - I lost very little range of motion over the course of treatments; no small gift.

Much of my frustration these past few weeks has been the tendency of the treatment team to treat only the front right quadrant of my chest - the part of me getting radiated. Unfortunately for me, my distrust of the process, and my many questions, I never did figure out how to bring only that piece of me to the clinic. The rest of me insisted on trailing along.

Last night, as I was trying to get to sleep, I found myself replaying conversations I'd had with the treatment team, trying to figure out how I could have worded things differently to convince them to listen to me; to treat my questions about my fears and my not-in-the-book side effects with respect and compassion, rather than indifferently dismissing them. After a fruitless thirty minutes, I finally convinced my brain that what is past, is past. To let it rest and move on. Not all problems are me problems. Not all issues need to be resolved.

I've not been surprised at the myriad emotions which have bubbled up since I loudly and fiercely rang the bell after completing my last session on Wednesday. In order to get myself to go each day, I'd kept a pretty tight lid on them. 

Relief, first and foremost. Now, I can begin to heal. Relief was followed quickly by sadness, grief, even; so many reasons. Gratitude for the chance I have been given to have more good days. 

My physical body is confused and angry, I don't understand why I did this to me. I feel tired; this one I understand all too well. The Universe has noted my fatigue, and I was gratified last week when several of my friends reached out to let me know, unless I said it should not be delivered, dinner would show up at my door this coming week.

My mama didn't raise no fool, so I told them, "Yes, please, and thank you!"

I found the radiation room to be a lonely place. I am grateful for the not-so-gentle reminder that I do not walk this road alone. 

My people care.

Family Reunion

Perhaps, if I had checked with my medical team, they'd have advised me not to spend fourteen hours traveling to the family reunion this past weekend, but I decided what they didn't know wouldn't hurt them, and off I went.

The trip had been arranged months ago - before I found out radiation would be delayed. Cancer has messed up enough of my summer that I didn't really even consider not making the 6-1/2 hour drive. Some lunches are important!

I did concede it, perhaps, wasn't wise to attempt doing the actual driving part myself, especially since the reunion was Sunday, and I had to be back in town early Monday morning for my next radiation treatment, which means I couldn't break it into stages.

Several weeks ago, as I was mulling over the list of people I thought I could ask to drive up with me, I happened to mention my predicament to my friend, Rhonda, from yoga class. I quickly discovered she's the sort of person who is willing to take a chance that an all expense paid, 36 hour trip to Decorah, Iowa, for lunch might actually be fun. I guess she couldn't resist the opportunity to choose anything she'd like from the extensive menus at Subway and Starbucks??

Unlike me, she actually likes the part where she sits behind the wheel guiding the car along the road; turns out she's a good driver. I enjoyed the hours we had to learn more about each other's lives - it's been decades since I took a road trip with someone whose stories I wasn't already familiar with.

I am so grateful for her assistance. We left Saturday morning in time to join my brother, Tony, and his wife, Susan, for a delicious hamburger and sweet corn dinner in Waterloo, where we also spent the night.

Sunday morning, we got up bright and early to drive on up the road to my cousin's house in Decorah, where the family was to gather for a potluck lunch. We had a good turnout, and I enjoyed spending the next few hours swapping what's-up-with-your-life stories with those gathered. 

Bonus, lunch was amazing. The older I get, the more I appreciate the chance to enjoy two big bites of most of the offerings at a good potluck. (Even limiting myself to two bites, and filling my plate twice, my stomach, sadly, didn't have enough room to sample all the deliciousness. *sigh*)

We got back on the road shortly after 2, talked our way back across Iowa and northern Missouri, and arrived home around 8:30. I slept pretty well, and while I am tired today, I am also content. Given the way radiation has been zapping my energy, if I hadn't gone, I'd have been tired anyways, AND I would have missed all the fun!

I figure I win when I don't give cancer more of my precious time than I must - and this weekend definitely counts as a win in my book!

Better Words

The veneer of 'OK' I wear in order to face the world is wearing thin these days. Radiation has been HARD!

These past two weeks, I can't easily get myself out of bed. I wake, then roll over and press my head into the mattress, futilely hoping it's not actually morning. I check in with my body, which curls up on itself. It doesn't understand what happens in the radiation room, but it knows it doesn't like it. 

It tells me, "Please don't squish my head again today. Please? Please? Please?" 

I give me a nod of sympathy, and tell myself, "Suck it up, Buttercup! Not going is not an option."

Then I roll out of bed.

It doesn't feel good. Not the getting up, not the radiation which follows. Not the sucking it up. 

I do it, but.

This past week, when I saw my onco-psychologist, who has been a helpful navigator as I negotiate the twists of this cancer recurrence path I'm on, I told him what I've been doing, then asked him if he would be willing to help me find better words. 

He readily agreed to help me brainstorm; said my current word choice, though effective, lacks compassion. My body is right. The radiation is part of my best chance of keeping my cancer gone for a time, but it is not kind to me. 

We spent the rest of Thursday's session working to find those better words. He is good at what he does, so when this morning rolled around, I was able to tell me:

"This is NOT OK. 

AND 

I want to have more good days, like [yesterday morning]* when [I got to spend time with my family on a lovely pontoon boat ride at Lake Jacomo]*. 

Both are true."

*[fill in these blanks each day with a good memory]

Then I gave little Buttercup a metaphorical kiss on the top of her head, and helped her to sit up and start her day.

Getting up was SO much easier.

Showing Up

This morning was a tough sell. My last radiation session last week did not go well. 

I was working with a new set of techs, and the lead person didn't care what I wanted. She ran the session the way she always did, my request for warning whether I needed to hold a breath for three seconds or thirty, ignored.

The resulting hyperventilation reactivated my dizziness. To add injury to insult, the crew didn't properly align my shoulder on the table; by the time I finished it was cramping and locked out of alignment. 

Fortunately, the long weekend allowed me time to stretch and exercise my upper right side back into place. The additional time also let my head heal up - by last night, the horizon had quit shifting on me. It was stable for the first time in two weeks.

I did NOT want to go back in and mess it all up again. 

But since I didn't let Libby quit in the middle of her tough chemo treatments, I could hardly look myself in the mirror if I bailed on the comparatively mild side effects of my radiation treatments thus far.

So, I showed up.

To my pleasant surprise, when I was called back for my session, it was Lynsey doing the calling - she's on what I've come to think of my A-Team. She and Natalie listen. They are quick, careful and compassionate. My apprehension level quickly eased. I was quickly strapped into place and treatment started.

Then. 

About halfway through the session, my meditation music suddenly stopped. 'What??' I recognized the strains of the song replacing the quiet tones - the Eagles, Hotel California.

Welcome to the Hotel California
It could be heaven, and it could be hell.

And in the master's chambers, they gathered for the feast

They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast
Last thing I remember, I was running for the door
I had to find the passage back to the place I was before
"Relax, " said the night man, "We are programmed to receive
You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave"

'Really??? Of all the songs in the world, someone picks THIS one?' I started laughing.

The song lasted for the rest of the session - when Lynsey came back in, I asked her why the switch. She apologized, said they hadn't touched a thing, but that sometimes Pandora, the streaming service, has a mind of its own.

Clearly, the Universe has not misplaced their sense of irony.

Rough Start

My twenty sessions of radiation got off to a rough start last week.

They did a simulation the day before I was to actually start radiation, to make sure they'd measured everything correctly. As part of the treatment, there is a customized plastic mold they put over my head (it covers my head, but not my face). The mask is strapped to the table, holding my head immobile in order to ensure my throat stays out of the line of fire. They're radiating the lymph nodes right next to my esophagus, so while I'm not fond of having my head held down, I am all about doing all that can be done to keep stray body parts out of the path of the destructive rays.

Unfortunately, they cranked down on the mask a bit too tightly, compressing the back of my skull into the underlying support. I didn't know what I was or wasn't supposed to feel; I wasn't expecting to be comfortable - but when I stood up I felt as if the back of my skull was asleep. The sensation quickly resolved into a dizzying pulse. Not painful, but definitely also not right. I had to sit for a moment or three before I felt steady enough to drive. 

Fortunately, rest helps. 

While they have been careful not to overcrank the mask since, the damage was done, and I've been fighting waves of dizziness all week, in addition to the expected fatigue and whatever yuck is coming from adjusting to the aromatase inhibitor. Each day, when I settle into the headrest of the treatment table, it feels as though I'm pressing on a healing bruise - not undoing the healing progress which happened overnight, but definitely setting it back a step or two. Each day, after treatment finishes, I stop in the handy chair in the hallway outside the nurses station and breathe and massage my scalp and neck until the horizon stabilizes and I can safely drive home.

Fortunately, the world stabilizes sooner each day. I am on the mend.

Having the weekend off helped immensely. I was fortunate to be able to get away and spend it at the Stockton lake cabin of some friends. My energy was limited, and I was sad to spend a good part of Saturday resting at the house instead of trolling about the lake with the rest of the crew, but there are worse consolation prizes.

While they were out, Sylvester and I sat on the porch. I read a book, Sylvester kept a watchful eye on the surrounding area. We both enjoyed the moment of peace. 

And, resting for the afternoon recharged my batteries. I had plenty of oomph available to fully join in the laughter and fellowship at the dinner table, which was a balm for my soul. I am so grateful for the support of my friends.

Four down, sixteen to go. One step at a time.

Why Bother?

"Why bother?" I asked myself.

Why bother to spend time learning Spanish or rebuilding my piano skills? Why bother to work on the various tasks on my to-do list? Why bother to clean, to repair, to sew, to read a book?

It was easier, last week, to spend my afternoons caught in a mindless and seemingly endless doom scroll on my iPad than it was to engage my brain. I actually found myself reading the political news at one point - and you know I've avoided that part of the paper since November 8th!

When I took a step back, it didn't take me long to uncover what was behind the spiral; there's a part of me that REALLY doesn't want to do radiation and hormone therapy. These things are scary! Chances are excellent my cancer will return one day anyway - why not let it just come back now? Why even try?

Um. Hold on a minute, girl. 

Why create, in a world that's going to hell in a handbasket?

Because I want to be on the side of the Universe that creates senseless Beauty. The peonies in my backyard lasted less than a week - was their beauty diminished because it was short-lived? A sunset lasts less than an hour - are the colors less vivid because they quickly fade to night? Music fades from the world just moments after the notes are heard - is that a reason to never be part of creating the sound, to never attend a concert?

Are my hours of practice wasted because I will never be a concert pianist?

Yeah, everything I create will fall apart, and sooner rather than later. So what?

I don't know where Beauty goes after its time. But if I compare an afternoon spent doomscrolling against one creating and learning, I do know which will leave me in a better mental space at the end of the day, which will lead to a more restful night's sleep.

I know I will fall into the doom scroll trap again. But next time, I'll try to remember, sooner, that I can choose better ways to spend my precious days.

One step at a time.

Taking a Break

I showed up. I went to my appointments last Wednesday. 

The oncologist and I spent about a half hour first thing in the morning, talking over pros and cons of the various treatment options. Based on our consensus, I started taking exemestane, an aromatase inhibitor, that night. (If my body tolerates the drug, and I hope it will, I will be on it for quite some time.) 

I went home and grabbed lunch, then headed back out to spend almost two hours in the radiology department. I am now properly marked and measured and scanned; I will start my sixteen sessions of radiation on 6/25.

Then, I took a break from cancer for the rest of the week. I dropped all those questions and concerns, obsessions and control issues, into a handy basket, firmly closed the lid, then tucked the whole package away for a few days.

My red-headed stepchild had come into town for the weekend.

Since she's somehow turned into a responsible and productive adult, chances to spend one-on-one time with her have become few and far between, and it was easy to set everything aside to focus on renewing our relationship.

We spent hours on my back porch, sipping coffee and just talking. We have both been dealing with world-rocking challenges these past couple of years, and it was wonderful to spend time leisurely reviewing our learnings and remaining conundrums. We provide good perspective for one another. 

I was sad to watch her drive off yesterday morning.

Once she left, I sat down with my calendar to get an idea of the shape of my days this coming week.

I had to laugh. Clearly the Universe doesn't want me to sit around moping as I wait to start treatment next week, because my friends have reached out from several directions to pull me off my couch and out from under my fuzzy blanket. (Probably a good thing - it'll be a bit warm this week for blankets.) I have coffee, lunch, dinner, Shakespeare in the Park - a something going on almost every day of this week. I'm sure I'll still manage to find time to obsess about cancer and its effects on my life now and again, but I won't have enough down time for it to take over my days.

I'm calling this a good thing.

Waiting Again

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

In contrast to my surgery date, which I was eagerly anticipating by the time it arrived (EEWWW! Get it oouuutttt!), I have found myself looking at the calendar this week with a fair amount of dread.

On Wednesday, I will see both the oncologist, where I anticipate 'we' will finalize the endocrine treatment regimen I will be taking, and the radiation oncologist, where I will get measured and scanned and given some tiny dot tattoos in preparation for my treatment sessions which will start in two weeks or so.

This past week, for the first time in ages, I've found myself, time and again, diving down internet rabbit holes. I've spent hours each day doing ALL the NYT puzzles, then reading all the parts of the paper. A couple of times, I even found myself actually reading the political news of the day (which I haven't done since November 8). *sigh*

I stop. I ask myself, "is this really how you wanted to spend your time?" 

And then I mindlessly keep scrolling. 

Avoidance much?

I'm working to crawl back out of my hole; I am tired of all that nothingness. It makes the backs of my eyes hurt. 

It helps that Kate is recovering well from her marathon surgery; things are healing up and she likes what she sees in the mirror. She is also tolerating the endocrine treatments well - they're not knocking her flat and her brain is still functional. This past weekend, when I talked to her, she sounded like herself for the first time since she found her lump last July. She is living proof that this, too, shall pass.

I tell myself I don't have to be strong. I don't have to stay positive. I can mope in the corner all I want as long as, when the time comes, I show up at those appointments.  

One step. I just have to take one step.

This, I will do.

Quilting

A few years back, Kate found a quilt top at an estate sale. She kept it for a bit, then decided a quilting project was not going to be completed in her near future, and passed it on to me. I took the piece and put it in the back of my closet, targeting its completion as a good task for winter's evenings.

There it sat for quite some time. I did take it out long enough to head down to a local fabric shop, where I picked up the batting and backing I needed to finish the piece. Back into the closet it went.

As I was busy nesting before my cancer surgery this spring, the quilt was one of the projects I decided NEEDED to be completed as I started this round of treatment. (Sometimes, it's just not worth the energy it takes to argue with me.)

So, I pulled it out, fully intending to use yarn in the center of each hexagon flower to hold the piece together; a quick way to finish the blanket. Then I took a closer look at it, and realized someone had hand-stitched the thousands of tiny hexagons together. 

I stopped.

I began to form a mental picture of a woman, seated in a comfy chair, next to a fireplace. She is tired, but wants to create beauty at the end of her day, which was filled with less creative tasks. She quietly wields the needle and thread, using the repetitive motion to soothe her mind and quiet herself for sleep.

I pictured her tying off the last knot, then spreading the completed quilt top over her nearby sofa to admire her handiwork. I can feel her pride in accomplishment. She folded it up, planning to complete the quilting soon, then. then. 

I don't know what happened then, but given that she never finished the piece...

I re-formed my plan for finishing her piece. I wanted to honor her handiwork, and so decided, instead of using yarn to quilt, I would dust off my embroidery skills and make sunny yellow daisies to hold the pieces together. (This is one of those times where I'm just fine living alone, because there was no one to grumble when the project took over my dining room table for the last two months.)

In that last hour before bed, I've been putting on some quiet music and sitting down to sew some flowers. The meditative motion has given my hands something to do and freed my mind to attempt to sort through all the feelings which have been churning since I first found out the lump was my cancer, returned.

I finished the last daisy last night; will begin putting the binding on the edge this week. To work on completing this unknown person's labor of love, a deliberate act of creation in the midst of the rubble of my delusions of control, feels good. 

Beauty Is.