Decision Time

In just a few hours, I’ll be heading back to the oncologist for the results of my post-radiation PET scan, chest CT, abdomen and pelvis CT, bloodwork, and the report from my radiation oncologist.  We’ll finally find out whether the surgery and radiation killed the cancer cells in my body, or if they’re gearing up for another fight.

Whether BlogHer 10 will be all sweetness and celebration for me, or not.

Whether I can move on and go shopping with my friends this weekend, or not.

Whether I will get stronger and stronger as I have been the last several weeks as the radiation effects wear off, or not.

Whether I will get the chemo pill, or go to the hospital for the chemo infusions through a port in my chest every week or three.

Whether I will …

Oh, forget it.  You know what I’m saying here.  Big day.

I almost ended up going to cover President Obama’s speech at the National Urban League Conference tomorrow morning, squeezing it in just before my appointment, but I’ll simply be too nervous and too focused on getting there, so I passed at the last minute.  Justice Stacey,  TechSavvyMama, Minky, and Amanda will do a GREAT job in the blogger pool, and I’ll just tootle on down to the hospital for my appointment.  (You can watch the speech online here at 8 a.m. EDT, or check their blogs later tomorrow.  Very cool.)

I’m expecting very good news tomorrow (what else can I expect?), but until I hear the good news from my oncologist Herself, I admit I’ll still be a little nervous.

A little.

This week was a good one.  I spent a few days up at my mom and dad’s house with the kids, helping them have a good ol’ fashioned small town summer, complete with a trip to the fair.  We petted pigs, stood nottooclose to the cow wash, heard the goats complain about their pens, and watched the sheep look at us funny with those little tufts left on top of their heads.  And then, Iamnotmakingthisup, we watched a goat show.  The 4-H kids were showing the young goats they had raised, and the judge was calling out the results and the rationales at the end of each round like an auction caller. 

The children were fascinated.

And then, they climbed on the tractors.  All of them.  All sixteen hundred of them, as far as I could tell, as they test-drove-in-place machine after machine as if they were making a purchase, my little city boys.

We had a lovely time.

If I were Stimey, this post would be filled with pictures (and humor).

I’m not.  It’s not.  I’m just a little nervous about tomorrow.

Decision time.

When I woke up

When I woke up this morning, I forgot I was sick.

I rolled slowly out of bed and caught up with my little ones on the stairs.

I made them oatmeal, raspberries, and cheerios, being careful to pour their “mulk” into square glasses as requested (daily).

We ate cheerily and talked about the day. We loaded the dishwasher and went upstairs to get dressed. Halfway up the stairs, I heard myself panting, felt myself slow down, and then stopped, almost too tired to haul myself all the way up. The kids hopped in the shower, but I?

I passed the kids off to C and went back to bed, tired beyond all reasoning, and lay there, so tired, not wanting to move.

Hours later, I got up again, this time walking carefully to my office in the room next door. I wrote for an hour, making nice progress on the revisions for Chapter 6, and then allowed myself to be distracted by the children’s laughter as they told me all about their adventures and carried me away with their dreams.

We took a new puzzle to the big bed and busied ourselves with putting it together, just us. Quiet. Happy. Enjoying each other on these terms.

And it was almost as if I had chosen this quiet life, cuddled with my children, reading story after story, and talking about the day as we did puzzles together.

For a moment, again, I almost forgot I was sick.

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!

Radiation Energy

Surprisingly, being zapped with 10 million volts of photon radiation each morning does not increase a person’s energy level AT ALL.

Radiation makes you tired. It makes me tired. So tired that last Friday after treatment I just sat outside the radiation center, catching my breath and gathering my energy so that I could drive home.

For nearly an hour.

It scared me. It scared people who care about me too, and now I’m not driving myself to radiation anymore, and I’ve moved the remaining treatments to the afternoon.

Luckily, there are only FOUR more treatments to go. THREE more by the time you read this, actually, as I’m typing on my iphone in the waiting room. Moving to the afternoon has given me my mornings back, a gift, although I’m more and more tired each day, as the effects of treatment are cumulative.

SO cumulative, in fact, that the nurses say that the radiation actually continues working for TWO WEEKS after the treatments end!

So I’ll be tired. I’ll be home. I’d love to see you if you find yourself nearby (and we’ve met before!). But you’ll need to call first in case I’m napping — on Monday, I slept for 14 hours straight!

Wild.