More than half-way

I am officially more than half-way done with the radiation part of my breast cancer treament. My skin has been holding up pretty well and the time has been giong by faster than I expected it would. I continue to work, I am not overly tired or anything yet, and I am just starting to get a little tender in a couple of spots that get radiated.

As this entire process unfolds, I am increasingly grateful for how well my body is handling all the things that it has been thrown. But at the same time, I feel a little guilty. How come my cancer treatment is going so much easier than others facing the same disease?

It's the "why me" thing in reverse. "Why NOT me?"

There are so many people who have had more complications, more sickness, more down time.

My continued health in the face of treatment is a blessing to me, and I am truly thankful, but still that little voice in my head keeps saying, "You have it so easy. What makes you think you DESERVE to have it so easy?"

I was just reading in the paper the other day how a young lady had to stop after one session of chemotherapy because it was causing damage to her liver. And now the cancer has spread. I have to be honest. I cried when I read that. Why did this happen to her? Why not me?

I'm not saying I wish it would have happened to me, but when you see these people with much bigger struggles ahead of them, you realize you just wish nobody had it harder than you.

Is it spring soon?

It's a cold one today. So what better way to ward off the cold than to
post a photo of sunny spring flowers? It's getting closer every day!!!! Yea!
 

Dog face

Every once in awhile, you just need to post a picture of your favorite dog face.
Here's mine. This resting his head and looking up at you thing
is pretty common. He also rests his head on the bottom of the stairs
when everyone is upstairs. Our kids call it step facing!

Lotion commotion

I keep forgetting to lotion my radiated region.

I'm supposed to lotion at least three times a day. Invariably, I forget at least one of those applications. Usually, it's the one I'm supposed to do around noon. I usually remember around 2 p.m., which is past the "last lotion application three hours prior to treatment"  requirement.

Apparently, if you lotion within the three hours, it could throw off the radiation. Which is something I definitely don't want to do.

Radiation patients are supposed to lotion frequently to help minimize the effects of radiation. I carry it in my purse, so it's always accessible. Just not always remembered.

I'm a big believer in aloe. I have managed to burn my fingers many, many times in the kitchen, and I've found that aloe gel works much better than running my fingers under cold water.

So I decided I would use lotion with aloe in it on my radiated region. Hopefully, it will keep the redness and itching to a minimum.

And 15 treatments (out of 33) in, so far, so good (knock on wood).

I suppose I will be more apt to remember to apply the lotion when I start to get red and itchy and peely. That's when the lotion commotion will really start!



 

Baking soda rules!

I'm beginning to think baking soda is the answer to any problem!

I mean, have you ever looked at the box? It's an antacid! It freshens your refrigerator! It scrubs away stains and grease on pots and pans, sinks, counters, etc.

AND....

It cleans coffee stains on carpets.

Serious.

It's Day Two of the Coffee Stain Saga, and I admit this is taking much more elbow grease and time (not to mention blog time) than one would care to admit.

Let me explain. After attempting to clean the coffee-stained carpet with carpet cleaner two (or maybe three, I forget) times yesterday, I decided to slather it with dish detergent and let 'er sit overnight.

I turned on the light this morning to find that it didn't do the job and much more work was in order.

A friend told me about how baking soda might do the trick. So I pulled out the baking soda, mixed it with water to make a paste and worked it into the stains with my fingers. Then, I let it dry for a couple of hours.

I'm here to tell you that baking soda and water is BY FAR a better carpet cleaner than carpet cleaner. It was amazing to see how the baking soda was pulling the coffee from the carpet fibers, just like a wick or something. And I didn't have to scrub and scrub.

I just rubbed the dried paste with my fingers to loosen it a little and vacuumed. I was amazed at how much better the carpet looked. The stain was about 79% gone. Not being satisfied with 79%, however, I repeated the aftorementioned procedure.

So even though yesterday's post was a cautionary one about how not to be like me and do too many things at once, today's post is really about the wonders of baking soda. Good old sodium barcarbonate.

I'm going to keep it handy in my home and at work, from now on. Because, even though I will TRY not to do several things at once, I'm also a certifiable klutz. You never know when I will leave another coffee trail on a carpet.

Coffee trail on a carpet. Sounds like a good name for a rock band!

My bad example

I am always trying to do too many things at once. And invariably, it gets me into trouble. Important things get forgotten, hashbrowns get burned.

Like this morning. I was trying to take a newspaper out of a plastic bag, carry a coffee pot with yesterday's coffee still in it, as well as the coffee filter-holder thingy that had to be rinsed out because there were still a few coffee grounds in it.

All while walking.

Consequently, something had to give, and it was the coffee in the pot.

I finished taking the newspaper out of the the plastic bag and only then realized the coffee pot I was carrying had been emptying its contents on the floor. Correction: On the CARPETED floor.

It was, I must admit, a coffee trail worthy of a few cuss words.

Which I emitted.

With nary a squirt of carpet cleaner left in the can.

I ended up using the last squirts of carpet cleaner on three of the four spots, and dish detergent on the fourth one. Turns out dish detergent is a better carpet cleaner than carpet cleaner. In fact, it reminds me of a line in a movie, Aliens, to be exact, when Ripley says to Newt, "Uh oh. I made a clean spot here. Now I've done it." The clean spot created by the dish detergent put the supposedly clean areas of the carpet to shame. (So THIS is what the original color of this carpet was? Whoda' thunk it?)

But the point of this is not that dish detergent is better than carpet cleaner. The point of this is to pose the question: "How much time has been wasted cleaning the carpet because I was trying to save time doing three things at once?

Food for thought, folks. And if I save just one person from my bad example, my work here is done!

Gray matter

This is my head. Or the very top of it, anyway. See all the "gray matter?" Turns out there's a lot more gray on top than there is inside, at least for a while. I wrote about it in a December 17 post.

 

I just thought it was kind of funny to have all this new gray matter on top when the chemo that caused me to lose my hair also caused the gray matter in my brain to shrink a 'lil bit. (The link takes you to a Wikipedia page. Scroll down to the research section to read about it.)

So, no earth-shattering insight, no pontificating. Just a little Thursday gray matter humor. (Well, in my "limited" capacity, I think it's funny, anyway!)

Bloomin' crazy?

It's the middle of January and I'm already starting to think about flowers.

I know. It's North Dakota. I'm crazy.

But I heard an ad on the radio this morning for something and it mentioned spring. And I laughed and thought, "Spring? Why are they advertising about spring?" Funny how I can't remember what was being advertised, but I can remember the "spring" part. Just goes to show you how well advertising works on some of us! ; )

It planted a seed (pun intended) however, and now I'm starting to think about what I'm going to do differently this year. My mother-in-law says I can have more peonies, which will be really nice, since I kind of gave up on having wildflowers in the back bed since I got a bad case of.....

(Here, I take a pause to see if I can find the name of the "wildflower" which really should be listed as a noxious weed because it takes over everything. I get distracted by other things, and never get back to this post. This is Tuesday's post, and now it's Wednesday!)

This not remembering stuff is kind of the new normal for me, since chemo. I mean, I wasn't "stellar" before, but after chemo, let's just say that they'd seriously laugh at me if I ever tried out to be a contestant on Jeopardy! Seriously laugh. Odd pairing of words, don't you think?

The reason I bring up Jeopardy is because I was watching it yesterday for awhile while waiting to get in for my radiation. And while I knew many of the answers to the questions Mr. Trebek was asking, all I could see were the pictures in my head. The words to name those pictures weren't coming. So my answers would be like, "What is, that movie that stars the guy who was in that dancing movie with the lady who had a nose job."

Yes, they'd laugh me out of the studio.

But not remembering stuff has its advantages. Even though I may have had a plan for my flowers this spring, I didn't write it down or if I did, I don't remember where I wrote it, so I can keep planning and I will keep thinking I'm coming up with new ideas.

And I STILL can't think of that wildflower that should be classified as a weed. But I'm not going to leave this page and search again, because the odds are VERY good that I will AGAIN forget to finish this post!

Bloomin' crazy? Maybe. Just maybe.

The daily rad

It's the beginning of my second week of radiation treatments for breast cancer, henceforth to be known as "The Daily Rad." Last week was kind of a blur, between a busy work schedule and daily runs to the treatment center.

It really is not so bad, because I have the appointments scheduled close to the end of the day, so when I'm done, I just go home. It shortens the work day a little bit, and sometimes that throws me for a loop, but for the most part, it's pretty manageable.

Six down, 27 to go. It sounds like a lot, but plucking away at it each day seems to make the whole process go pretty fast.

And I have had just about everyone tell me, "Radiation is a breeze compared to chemo." So even though the 12-week Taxol treatments were pretty easy on me, I'm hoping radiation is so easy, I hardly even know it's happening. I feel kind of selfish wishing that, when I know other people have it so much tougher than I have had it. Still, it doesn't stop me from wishing it. It's a busy time of year when the Legislature is in session, and the better I feel, the better I work.

I decided last week that I was going to forget about wearing scarves on my head and just go with the short, very gray hair that I have. I was planning to wait until my hair was long enough to look like the "style" was on purpose, but the scarves that were once comfortable and comforting had become itchy and annoying. I figure it's all this new, fuzzy gray stuff on my head protesting about being covered up.

Since my radiation treatments have their own name, it only seems right that my hair -- which seems to have a mind of its own -- should have a name too.

Any suggestions?

2013 spending spree to see

The year is not even two days old and I have managed to spend a big pile of money. Of course it was for stuff that I needed.

Seriously.

Okay, well, maybe I don't need the contacts, but I definitely need the glasses. I'm not supposed to drive without them. And even though the prescription didn't change much, it's always good to make sure you are seeing your best.

I prefer to wear contacts working at the computer so I don't have to look down my nose to see what's on the screen through my bifocals. Yes. Bifocals. Got them shortly after I turned 40. It's like, 40 came, and my ability to read things close up went. But I digress.

I have one contact for close-up and one for distance. That's why I can wear contacts and not have to wear half-glasses or something to see the computer screen. When I was knee-deep in chemo and couldn't bear to wear my glasses because my eyes were itchy and watery, I found that I could see the computer screen better just by taking off my glasses, moving in a hair (Hah! Funny and punny when I didn't have any hair!!!) and skipping the looking down my nose part.

But now that I have contacts again, I don't have to keep taking off and putting on my glasses.

One thing that kind of took me by surprise, though, was the eye doctor said he could see the start of cataracts -- just a slight clouding, nothing major -- but definitely a start. Turns out (and if someone told me this I spaced it out entirely) chemotherapy can contribute to cataracts. It doesn't happen in everyone, but I guess out of all the things that could happen, this is definitely not the worst.

And I got some pretty nice glasses. And I can wear contacts again. And if I have to have cataract surgery sooner than later, I think it's a small price to pay for a chance at a longer life.