Last Year...
Last February ('05) and the first half of March I'd get up every week day morning at 5:00 AM. I needed to be on the subway before 6:00 AM in order to get to the Upper East Side for the first radiation appointment of the day.
There were a few snowy and stormy days and a major East Side subway shut down during that six week period of time.
This is all to say that I took it as a challenge. I would get through radiation therapy every day for six weeks and still be at school before my first class of the day. No one would be any the wiser.
Radiation is nothing. It's painless. It does not make you feel sick or tired. (Everyone I know is sick AND tired but radiation has nothing to do with it.)
The down side of radiation:
•It's a pain in the neck to make the commitment of going every day with the other things you have to do in your normal day.
•At the end of the six weeks you do have a very itchy rash. They give you medication for it and the rash eventually goes away.
I bet most of the people I work with didn't even realize something was different with me last year. That was my plan.
I forgot all about it myself, until today.
I got a questionairre from Sloan Kettering:
"When was the date of your first breast cancer?"Oct 15, 2004
"Which side?" right
" What was your treatment?" surgery and radiation
"Have you had a second breast cancer?" no
"Have you had a third cancer of any kind?" whoa...give me a break, it's only a year!
My annual radiation follow-up falls on March 7 this year, a Tuesday. If Mondale really pays attention he might notice that I'm not there at the beginning of his computer class that day. He may not notice at all, which would please me. I like to accomplish these things under the radar.
Life goes on.
I really did enjoy the snow this weekend. almost as much as the snow last February.
4 comments:
Well I'll bloody well notice now won't I?
You just went and told me.
"Well I'll bloody well notice now won't I? You just went and told me."
Mondale, I've known you for ages and I've never known a time when telling you something ever made you notice anything...
Mac, what a fascinating post; best wishes for March 7.
I've been refraining from commenting for a day in order to think of something helpful and clever and good to say but nothing has come to me quite yet. And I didn't want to let another 24 hours go by without telling you how impressed I am with you. Obviously, if this were me, the ENTIRE WORLD would have known every little yucky detail.
And I also wanted to say that although you seem to prefer it this way, you really don't need to be stoic ALL the time and that we are all here to help you at the slightest provocation.
Well, you've been through quite a lot recently. I'm happy to hear you've reached the 1 year marker. My mom hit 10 years recently since her diagnosis/treatment.
Best of luck.
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