That’s because when it comes to cancer, hair is the marker of sickness and wellness.

…I am still here.

Radiation every weekday 25 minutes away is a good excuse for not doing much else on the cancer-patient front. But I have done some else: a visit to the gynecologic oncologist to talk about ovaries, follow-up with the surgeon, a date to go back to the OR to get my port removed (1/23), and lots of reading. My lifetime risk of ovarian cancer is around 44%. This is of a cancer that is only caught at a curable state 25% of the time. Makes one think.

Radiation has gone smoothly–I’m in and out of there in 15 minutes almost every day–and I’m now going at 8:15 (right after the schoolbus pick-up) so as to get it over with and have my day be less broken up (10:30 was not a convenient time). 5 more treatments and I’m done with that. I am sunburned, which is a pain, and have been very, very tired. I am feeling a little less tired today (I carried in 4 bags of groceries instead of leaving them for Eric, and haven’t had to lie down since I got up this morning).

I have hair. Due to fatigue, lingering effects of chemo, or both, my brain is still fuzzy. Thus I have been saying my head has fuzz inside and out. A couple of weeks ago:

Today (photo credit: me):

…and I am finding myself a little annoyed at how my head is turning this funny dark color.

I’m four treatments into radiation, which is daily, at 10:30 AM at Berkshire Medical Center. On the efficient days, I walk in, say hi to the techs, change, go into the zapper room and lie down, they position me, they put in the beam-benders and beam-blockers and leave the room and zap me. Then return, adjust the machinery, put in the second set of -benders and -blockers, and zap me again. Each zap is about 30 seconds. During which time the bright lights in the room go on, a red light on the ceiling that looks like a police-car light goes on, a buzzing noise fills the air, and silently and undetectably the machine beams radiation through my left breast. I lie there counting my breaths and trying to figure out how to visualize something positive about this instead of thinking of the Russian ex-spy who just died of radiation poisoning in London. Wish me luck.

So, on the good days I am dressed again, de-objectified, and out of there by 10:45 or 10:48. On the less-good days I have to wait in the waiting room until they’re ready for me. The waiting room is nicer than Albany Med’s, though–above ground, for one, and with a tall wood-covered half-barrel-vault ceiling with clerestory windows that let natural light in. Despite the relative pleasantness of the waiting room, I am keeping them a “star chart”–one star for every day I’m out of there in under 20 minutes.

Repeat every work day until the end of the third week of January, and I’m done with my treatment. Haven’t figured out how to celebrate yet. Meanwhile I suspect my hair is growing–almost invisibly, it’s so fine–but when I get dressed in the dressing room at BMC with the bright light shining down on my head I think I can see new growth between the hair that never fell out (about 2%, which I kept shaving). I guess I’ll know if I’m hallucinating in a week or so.

Okay, okay, so I’ve been trying to pretend life is it’s old boring self and haven’t had any blog-worthy thoughts in a while. Here’s something I didn’t ever relate, though: during my second chemo treatment, Eric led me through a visualization of the chemo drugs as light filling my body and shining all through it. For the next two weeks, although I didn’t feel so hot, people kept telling me I looked “luminous” or “glowing.” What’s up with THAT?

The third treatment we did the same thing but I got no luminosity comments.

So here we are, post-chemo, luminous or not–yay! Done with chemo. Yesterday was three weeks since the last treatment, so that’s done with. This last time I only felt bad until Sunday (I had mother-care, maybe that’s what helped). Now let’s just hope my eyebrows don’t all fall out (ditto eyelashes) as a belated effect of chemo–it happens. (Make a note: activate prayer circles on the topic of eyebrows.)

I am feeling pretty darn good, though not up to my usual speed or stamina on walks.

Sounds great but today, day 3, I feel rotten. So I don’t feel done with anything yet. Although the chemo nurses blew soap bubbles at me when I was ready to go on Tuesday:

Tuesday evening I felt like I had been hit all over with a sandbag (pressure evenly distributed). Yesterday my mind was sharp but I was very tired (not sleepy, body tired) and spent the day in bed as much as possible. Today my mind is fuzzier and I am still tired. Queasiness held off a bit until today, which was nice. It’s not too bad, and my flu-head (chemo headache from the Cytoxan) is worse than last time but no worse than the first two times.

These chemo symptoms for me seem like different rolls of the same few dice…different levels and onsets of the same set of side effects each time. This time around, staying in the bed (yesterday) and on the bed (today–a slight improvement–no covers necessary) seems like the right thing to do. Also, I’m trying to drink enough water and nettle tea (I didn’t manage last round, and I got a bad headache on days 5-7, plus my liver enzymes were elevated more on Tuesday when they checked) and take all my other supplements and things.

I got a book called SHOW ME that is all about breast surgery for breast cancer–lumpectomies, mastectomies, reconstructions of many different sorts, and no reconstruction. It’s mostly pictures and stories contributed by patients. Very useful! I’m putting it in the links on the right.

I realized on Sunday that what I’m doing with all these hats and bandannas is covering my head. It feels like covering. What I was doing in 1995 was hiding my head. No one else can probably tell the difference, the times I’m covering my head at least, but I can. What a relief.

There are two ways to go with the work/chemo juggling: you can go full-out, plan to live your Whole Life and make adjustments as needed as you go along–this will keep you feeling safe and normal as much as possible but will be hard work and things will go by the wayside unexpectedly (perhaps just the laundry, the dust in the corners, and the quality of lunchbox fare). Or you can decide that now is your time to lie low, take care of yourself, cut down on work and responsibilities, learn what you need to learn, explore other modes of healing that appeal to you, and do things you never give yourself time to do because of being a creative busy working mom (like read novels and hang out with friends? if you’re me).

There are benefits to both. But you can’t do both.

One thing about scheduling work and travel around chemo is that then you are home when you are busy with treatments and don’t have much energy (or maybe even feel bad), and then when you’re on the upswing, you’re off sharing your energy with…clients or friends or fellow board of committee members instead of family. It feels fine to you, but the other family members get a lot less of your energy.