Tuesday - August 19, 2008

 22 down, 11 to go

just a quick update on the radiation thing... 

2/3 of the way through the radiation treatment!  Wah-HOO!

How am I "taking it"?  According to the medical staff, I'm doing great - my skin is not reacting as badly as some.  Yeay!  I get the consolation prize (notice I didn't say booby prize): it could be worse.

Ask me at any given point during the day and I will confess "It itches like hell!".  I spend more time getting dressed these days.  Just sitting on my bed, contemplating the relative friction values of various clothing.

I've pretty much given up on bras, except for special occasions.  Which leaves me with the problem of my newly misaligned headlights showing through clothes worse than ever. 

So I spent a few days re-hashing old clothes and boring SPF shirts - designing my own new line of my own clothes designed for "nippelflage":

Ohhh, don't ask about the green one.  Unless you are a fan of Lost, in which case... Shame on you!  Get thee to Lostpedia!

Anyway, the things I read (and heard) going into it make perfect sense now - radiation treatment is very much like a gradual, cumulative sunburn.  

Take one tanning factor 10 day at the beach, with no sunscreen, and stretch it out over six and a half weeks.  As the day wears on, you feel increasingly hot and prickly and groggy.  And when it's over you know the burn will get worse that night before it gets better.  

Except the burn is confined, thankfully, to one very distinct patch of skin.  Which is why you might see me driving with my seatbelt under my arm instead of across my chest, or walking around with one elbow up in the air (avoiding friction in the pit).

So what if I'm not allowed in swimming pools or on sunny beaches... five days a week I get to go to the fabulous Riverview topless beach where people greet you with beaming smiles, serenade you with Hawaiian reggae, and hand you free samples of expensive creams.  

Ahhh, summer will never be the same again...  Lord willing.