usedtobeljs

I don't think I've ever had the experience of getting three quarters of the way through a whole month before registering on the fact that it IS the month. Like, today I looked at the little calendar D keeps magnetized to the fridge and I was all, "what? How did it get to be September?" I mean I sort of remember Labor Day...maybe...

I'm ready for radiation to be over. The skin is rough, patchy, itchy...I'm grateful that sheets of it have not begun to slough off, as my oncologist pointed out to me could happen. (This is called a "wet reaction." Those medical people, never calling anything exactly what it is!) Bright red spots where blood vessels have broken under the stress of radiation. Definitely a tanning effect in some places, but mostly just red, irritated, bumpy, scaly skin. The itch is beyond crazy-making, and I have brought myself to bleeding more than once when I absent mindedly scratched. Lots of hydrocortisone for the itch. Lots of heavy petrolatum-based crap for everything else. Ugh. And the fatigue...jesus. My niece joined me for dinner the other night, after which we took a walk on the beach, so I wasn't in bed until much later than usual, and the next day I was dragging ass like I hadn't slept for days. The radiation techs told me just to go home and sleep. So I did that. ALL DAY. I woke up around 4, thirsty, and drank a gallon of water. D got home about half an hour later. I was absolutely not interested in cooking so he ordered a pizza and a salad for me. About 8 he said, pointedly, "Can I bring you some salad?" I was also absolutely not interested in eating.

One positive point about radiation is weight loss. If we hadn't had the fucking hurricane, during which I put on two pounds, I'd have lost five or six pounds just this month. As it is, I've lost three. OK.

This weekend I'm working on school stuff and then preparing to visit my dear old dad for several days. I'm preparing myself for my adored stepmother to not know me. It will break my heart. Her Alzheimer's is advancing pretty rapidly--she's not talking much, she's growing incontinent, and she's showing all the signs of wandering. My dad is a tower of strength, but he's starting to feel the toll. They have help coming in fairly often but most of the time, he is living in his head with nobody to talk with. I have promised some discussion of Wordsworth, Browning, and the creepy imagery of Porphyria's Lover, a poem he read a million years ago at his boarding school and one he has never forgotten.

Man, I'm over this whole fucking year already. The downward spiral I see around me...politics, geo politics, climate change, devastation and heartbreak, earth/air/fire/water disasters...mother earth is getting ready to slough us off like parasites, which we have definitely been. We probably deserve to be wiped off the planet. God knows we haven't done anything FOR it in a while.

Jesus, what a lot has happened in the last couple of weeks, even without the fucking hurricane.

We fared very well. At the last minute, the change of direction of the storm put us in the clear and we stayed put rather than evacuating. We were fine except for the loss of power and the usual landscape destruction. So many thousands of people are so exponentially worse off that I feel ridiculous for saying "except for the loss of power..."! We got power back surprisingly quickly, although my sister is still out and so is my campus, D's office, and my bonus daughter's home. She's here, with her dogs. My sister is back to work. My niece got a very windy introduction to Florida, but she's safe too.

School is cancelled for the nonce, although we're supposed to start up again on Monday. Today I have to refigure the damn course schedule, since naturally we've been extended by a full week of December to account for hurricane days. Ugh.

I'm so exhausted from radiation I literally cannot imagine how people get through chemo. No wonder they sleep all the time. I'm two thirds of the way through--just 7 more treatments. The treatments are finally showing on my skin--reddening, petechiae, itching, and a burning sensation (which could be worse).

Over. It. But still, off to treatment number 8. On the downhill side.