Yesterday I hit yet another milestone – the end of RAY-DIATION!  As a traditional signal of this grand finale at the Mayo, I was led back to the waiting area and encouraged to hit the cowbell three times, with my ray-diation nurses looking proudly on.  I have heard that bell ring many times in the…

As a reluctant card-carrying member of the Glow Club, I am happy to report that today starts the final four mega boosts of my ray-diation.  My burnt, rash-riddled left breast is giving thanks, as am I.  I am so grateful to be on the downslope of treatment, close to the finish line and certainly past…

TGIF, everyone!  I haven’t appreciated weekends so much since I was a kid.  Back then, weekends signaled time off from school and chores, a time to find amusement in riding bikes, climbing trees and swinging on swings. Ahhh. Fond memories. Now weekends are a respite from the rays of ray-diation.   As an adult, weekends became…

Being laid up, so to speak, has its downsides.  Some obvious, some not so much.  With my eyes streaming water for months, reading has been next to impossible.  Writing has been a true challenge, with small windows of opportunity each day.  Daytime TV is abysmal at best, at least for my tastes.  I’ve now watched…

     Well, yesterday marked the halfway point in the radiation therapy.  Once again I find myself wondering why this wasn’t a piece of cake, as I had hoped and planned it to be. The answer is I got a lousy baker who substituted salt for sugar, I guess.  I never was any good at baking… I…

Yesterday I had a “double whammy squared” kind of day at the Mayo.  Seven hours of tests, labs, consults, radiation and then the coup de grace icing on the cake…chemo.  I dragged my sorry self out of there with only just enough juice left to drive myself home in rush hour traffic.  So, this morning…

We are officially in triple digit weather here in Phoenix.  Now is the time that all good snow birds pack up and head for cooler climes up north. H headed north today to CO, much to his dismay, where snow is forecast for Wednesday.  My golden retriever and I wish we were there.  She would…

Reboot is not something you want to hear when you are in the middle of your radiation treatment.  Just when everything was going so smoothly, too. I parked right in front of the building today.  No problem.  Everyone in the radiology department knows me by name already, as promised.  I was checked in before I…

    When I think of radiating, I prefer to visualize a glowing, healthy, loving aura surrounding my physical being.  My first radiation treatment yesterday took the concept of radiating to a whole new level.  For those of you unfamiliar with this breast cancer treatment, after surgery and chemo comes radiation.  At least for some of us. …

In the “never say never” department, I swore I would never permanently deface my body with indelible ink, no matter how lovely the artwork might be.  On Monday, I got 4 tattoos, all courtesy of my radiology doc.  I was admonished not to run out and try to elaborate and/or expand on the new tatts…