Radiation Day 25 – 5/6 of the way there.
Beam room music rundown:
- Absolutely nuthin’
I also collected yet another data point supporting the correlation of a lack of music with the absence of any women techs. I’m beginning to wonder if playing the radio in the beam room is a bit like party planning in basically every office – implicitly (sometimes explicitly) considered to be women’s work.
Downs
- I’m feeling increasingly shitty. My team warned me this would happen, so it’s not unexpected. It turns out swallowing poison daily eventually takes its toll on your body.
- My platelet count is low enough that the team is taking me off chemo (probably) for the remainder of radiation (just five more days!). This is apparently also very typical – that poison thing, again. Actually, it’s unclear whether this should be a “down” or an “up.”
- My big sister is now back on the west coast, and our plan to binge the Coen brothers’ canon was brought to a screeching halt by “Blood Simple.” It was nice to have some uninterrupted time together, but there’s still much catching up to do.
Ups
- Big R is back from her travels, and little R’s behavior has improved accordingly. We’ve already slipped back into a comfortable family routine.
- Even though I’m feeling shitty, I’ve still got my double unders. I did 3 sets of 30 today.
- Tomorrow is the second meeting with my dietitian where we’re gonna get real serious about this therapeutic ketogenic diet business.
Hi!
We haven’t met, but I’m an alum (a friend of the alum who met you to talk about keto) and have been following your story.
A family member went through chemo recently and got pretty discouraged by the whole “whoops too much chemo” thing. I’m sure your team has told you all this already, but in our case, there was a LOT of room to maneuver to dial in the dosage, and my non-expert read of things is that oncology teams like to start way out on the aggressive end of the spectrum. I know it’s not much to offer, but I hope this setback doesn’t bum you out too much; there’s comfort to be found ahead.
Also, 90 dubs on top of flu-like symptoms is no joke. Rock on!
Hi, Jon. Nice to “meet” you. Indeed, my radiation oncologist says they’ve designed the most aggressive treatment they think I can tolerate. And the thing is, symptoms-wise (nausea, fatigue), I’ve been tolerating it pretty well. I guess the blood work is telling the true story.
Low platelets not good but very very very par for the course. Means the chemo is doing its job. This journey gets you so in touch with your own body that soon you will be able to predict the numbers on your labs. Almost to the next milestone!
As a friend of mine said, “Cancer is my enemy, but chemo is my powerful friend.”
Thanks for helping me keep perspective, Rick!