I am DONE with Radiation!

Whoo-hoo! 

I am DONE with radiation treatments, friends, and I am SO HAPPY about that!

I’ve really slowed down the last couple of weeks.  I’ve just accepted it for the most part, treating life as if we were on a beach vacation where it rained the whole time — slowing down, playing legos with the kids and cards with the grandparents, sitting in my recliner doing puzzles or keeping up with the news magazines, and writing my NASA book.  I have gotten quite a bit done on the book for being in treatment, actually — 135 pages, a whole chapter, started and finished since my surgery!  I put it aside as less of a priority (sorry, scientists) than holding, reassuring, and being there for my children during the times that I am awake, but I keep coming back to it.  Work is an irresistable call for me, a siren beckoning me to use my brain, and it gives me energy and fulfillment to hole up in my office and write after the chidren have gone to sleep.

I was also able to get out twice this week, once to visit the new Fire Station One restaurant in Silver Spring (ohmygosh that was fun! Thanks, Jessica, for the tip!) and once with the grandparents driving, to take the children to their VERY FIRST MOVIE ever, Horton Hears a Who! (reviewed at Common Sense Media by our favorite reviewer, UrbanMama!)  The special children’s showing had lights on and sound turned down (after I reminded the manager, ahem, that the loud and scary previews were scaring the bejebus out of the children), and it was the perfect introduction to the movie theater for 3.5 year old Little Bear and almost 6 year old Widget!  Plus, booster seats!  Theaters have come a long way, apparently —

It is so easy to blog weekly activities when there aren’t many!  🙂  I kid, I kid.  We also went to a friend’s house this morning.  She picked us up and we had a quiet hour playing and catching up.  And then I came home and slept for five hours.

You play some, you sleep some. 

But when radiation is OVER, you CELEBRATE!

Note: The next two weeks will still be hard on me, as irradiating cells actually doesn’t kill them at once — it disrupts their life cycle such that at the end of cell lifetime, cells die instead of dividing.  Even though I didn’t have treatment today (HURRAY!) my skin is actually getting redder, and I’m still whupped.  But each day, that will get better, and better, and, my radiation oncologist told me yesterday, I should get up to 70% of my energy back by BlogHer!   Amazing.  Maybe I should have registered for the parties!