Few things are more uncomfortable for everyone than me avoiding eye contact with the 50+ year old white guys walking into the foot massage place

I’m not sure I can tell this joke as well as the technician who told it to me on my first day of radiation but here goes: “You know, I’ve gotta stop drinking.  I tell ya, I really gotta stop. The last time I went to the doctor, he asked me for a urine sample. And when I gave it to him, there was an olive in it.”

Mr. Hilarious told me that joke once he and I were alone in the room. He and Quiet Lady Technician worked together to get me aligned on the table. Then she left the room and Mr. Hilarious stayed in case I needed any adjustments based on what she saw from the monitors in the other room.

Did I mention that once they get you lined up they tell you not to move at all. I was to remain perfectly still, except for when they told me to take in and hold my breath.

Did I mention that i was lying on my back shirtless with my left arm on the table above my head?

Did I mention that my head was turned slightly to the side, just far enough that I could only see people who were standing to my right below my head?

So when Mr. Hilarious told me this joke, I couldn’t see him. And I couldn’t move.

I know he was trying to break the intense anxiety that I was flooding the room with but, eh - no dice.

Radiation was a whole new level of vulnerability. Every day for 28 days, I’d walk behind the curtain in the back corner of the big room and take off my shirt. I’d come out holding a “privacy garment” in front of me for the walk to the table. Privacy garment was rebranding for pillow case. There were a stack of them on the shelf back there next to the big bottle of aloe.

Then I’d lie on the mold they’d made of me a week before radiation began. I’d try to get in it as perfectly as I could, but they’d inevitably have to slide me around to get me in the exact position. They’d pull back half of my modesty pillow case, look for my tattoos and slide me around some more.

The radiation machine had retractable arms. One of them projected a tape measure across my body that they’d use to line up my tattoos.

Another one was an x-ray. They’d take new x-rays at the beginning of the week to make sure that everything internally was still where they thought it was according to my measurements and markings. Each time they reminded me how close it would come to my face and that it wouldn’t actually hit me and to remain perfectly still.

Another arm delivered radiation. I think I had eight distinct doses each session. To protect my heart, they used the “breath hold” technique with me. So after I was lined up on the table, the technicians would leave the room. I would barely hear someone say over the pa, “When you’re ready, take a breath in… keep going… keep going… and hold.” Next I’d hear the machine buzzing. When it was quiet I’d hear the voice say, “Relax.” Oh my God I HATED when they said relax. I wish they would have said, “Release your breath,” or “You don’t have to hold it any longer,” or “Let ‘er blow.” But “relax” made me crazy. You lay in a big radioactive machine in a room where you can’t see the door so you’re not entirely sure when someone’s there and you’re half-naked and pinned to a table and not allowed to move at all and you relax.  Fuck you.

My regular team of technicians were Mr. Hilarious, Quiet Lady and Ms. Confident. Quiet Lady was my favorite. She did what she had to do and made me feel the least self-conscious when she was shifting me around. She also did my set-up where she made the mold and tattooed me. Ms. Confident was my second favorite. She was the final word for me being in the correct position and the best at the bolus, a square gel shoe insole-like thing that covered half my body. They used the bolus every other session to concentrate the radiation on my skin’s surface. Non-bolus days, the radiation was subcutaneous. Anyway, Ms. Confident was the only one who could tape the bolus on once and have me covered for the entire session. If someone else did it, they’d have to un-tape it and shift it over to my side for the last 3 bursts of radiation.

So that would leave Mr. Hilarious as my least-favorite. Mr. Hilarious told me a new joke every day. Sometimes they were riddle jokes, but I always let him give me the answer because I knew he’d be crushed if he wasn’t the most clever in the room. Mr. Hilarious could also be known as Mr. Hand-On-My-Arm (ick - not comforting). Or Mr. “You’re Doing Great Kid.” All of those things made me dread being alone with him, but hey it was only every single day for over a month. Then I met my true least-favorite: New Guy.

On day 26, New Guy started. I don’t know what happened to Mr. Hilarious. They seemed to be showing New Guy the ropes as though he would be there long term. He was definitely creepy. He was hesitant, yet touchy.  He loomed. And that mofo moved without making a sound so all of a sudden he’d be touching me and I had no idea he was even in the room. Thank God I only had to be with him for three days.

I’d guess I had to hold my breath for like 10 seconds for each distinct dose. Around day 24, after the take-in-your-breath-and-hold sequence, and after the machine got quiet, the arm started to move to the next position without them telling me to relax. So I kept holding my breath and I heard the machine fire up again. After the second dose, the voice over the pa was animated when it said, “Relax!” When the whole session was done, Quiet Lady and Ms. Confident came in all excited. Quiet Lady said, “I told her we should let you let go of your breath in between but she was saying…” Ms. Confident,”I was saying,’She can do it! She can do it!’ So we went ahead and did the next one.  Are you a swimmer?”

I had 28 days of radiation that started on October 10th, the same day Walter started his new job in New York. It ended the week before Thanksgiving. I finished the third branch of the cancer treatment trilogy one year after I found the lump.

Turns out I hold my breath nicer and steadier than most radiation patients. And “Are you a swimmer?” is a pretty good pick-up line.

When I decided to have the bilateral mastectomy, I also decided I’d have reconstructive surgery. Lots of women have the mastectomy and are all done. But I felt lucky that my amputation could be aesthetically repaired. I imagine people who lose arms or legs or pinkies during football games would kill to look pretty much like they did before. And I thought I would feel self-conscious, or I guess even more self-conscious, for the rest of my life if I didn’t do it.

So the plan from the beginning was chemo for 5 months, mastectomy & expander placement surgery 4-5 weeks after that, expander fills for a month or two after that, radiation for however many weeks after that, then reconstruction surgery 6 months after first surgery. So my timeline to be done being a constant patient was, including recovery, around early April. I’m already totally done with chemo and my regular surgeon so I felt like I was moving right along.

I need expanders to slowly stretch the skin and muscles to create a space for the implants. They removed as much skin as possible with all the breast tissue. They couldn’t remove all the skin or I’d have holes in me. But taking as much skin as they can means the remaining skin is taught and flat. Enter expanders.

Expanders have a flat back that rests against your ribs/chest wall/whatever is behind your chest muscles. The rest of it is medical grade plastic. They’re like uninflated balloons wth a flat base when they put them in your chest. The solid back means the plastic can only expand in one direction - forward. There’s a port on the plastic side so fluid can be put in but can’t leak back out. The mediport I had for chemo was a bump you could see right under my skin. These babies are smooth.

Once a week I went in for a fill. I’d put on the gown and lay on the table. Then the plastic surgeon would clean my skin with beta iodine. So much beta iodine. I’d be orangey yellow from my throat to my navel. Next she’d hang an IV bag on the back of the door. Then it was time for not one, but two comically large needles. One at a time, she’d fill a syringe with saline from the IV bag and inject it into an expander. She’d have to push around on my chest to find the port. And then she’d stand there slowly depressing the giant plunger and chit-chatting about whatever. Most of the time, I didn’t feel a thing when the needle went in. The second week a special nurse (nurse practitioner? I don’t remember) did the fill because my plastic surgeon was unavailable. Both sides hurt when she did it. She said sometimes the needle goes through muscle to get to the port and that can be uncomfortable. This was medical code “uncomfortable” when in actuality she meant “painful.” I asked her if it was hard to push the saline in and she said yes. She said there’s a lot of resistance and her thumbs (she used 2 hands per needle) were really sore. I think my plastic surgeon was better at all of it. She could somehow push the muscle around so I didn’t even feel the needle. And she didn’t look like it was a struggle to push the saline. But she also used 2 hands per needle.

Where my people who had braces at? Remember right after the orthodontist tightened your braces? For me it meant a pretty constant dull ache in my jaw for about a week. After a fill, I felt achy and tight across my whole front. It felt like I was wearing armor that was 2 sizes too small. I remember some kind of tiny dolls whose clothes snapped onto them. There was a front piece and a back piece to every outfit and they clicked together on the dolls’ sides. It felt like something tight was clicked onto the front half of me and attached at my sides. A few days later it’d start to feel better. Then a few days after that I’d get the next fill.

My last fill was Wednesday. Nothing feels better during this process than having your “last” whatever it is. Last chemo - fuck yeah! Last time you see your surgeon - hell yeah! Last expander fill - yeah mama!

But a close second in feeling good was when I got to see my physical therapist. I love my PT. I saw her 5 times and looked forward to every appointment. She’d do some massages and stretches and then I could move a little bit better than the week before. Up until yesterday, my last PT appointment, I still couldn’t totally easily raise my arms over my head. It was close, but eventually I’d hit the “ughhh” point and have to push my arms up the rest of the way. This time she used some tool - it kind of looked like a door stop because it had ridges and was wedge shaped - and specifically massaged my drain scars and my arm pits. The left side hurt a little, but that’s the side the lymph nodes were removed and I still don’t have all the feeling back. As soon as she finished, I could totally lift my arm up like I could when I was 12 and still had braces. It was a big dramatic change. It was truly awesome. Then she worked on the same areas on my right side. That hurt because I have normal feeling there. But again, when she finished I could move basically normally again. Woo-freakin-hoo!!!

We all went out to dinner last night and got home late for us - around 9:30. I saw I had a voicemail from my plastic surgeon. She said she realized that she told me to schedule the switch-out surgery for late January, but that was a mistake. She said she that if you get radiation, which I’m scheduled to do, they wait until a year after radiation is over to do the surgery. She said something about the scar tissue because everything tightens up during radiation and you get better results if you wait a year. She apologized about telling me in a voicemail and said I could schedule an appointment to talk about it now or I could schedule an appointment for 7 or 8 months from now to talk about surgery. I felt gut-punched.

Another entire year. Another entire year that hasn’t even started yet. Another entire year that I don’t even have a start date for yet. I honestly can’t believe it. I won’t be done being a constant patient until Christmas 2017. I was pretty much counting the days until this would all be behind me. And really, I wasn’t including recovery so I was counting to February. I feel like my whole life just got put on hold again. In my dream scenario, I thought I’d try to find a job in the spring. I wanted to start somewhere new when all the major medical crap was over so I wouldn’t be “the girl with cancer.” So I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone about it. So I wouldn’t have to explain absences for doctors appointments or weeks of absence for surgery and recovery.

This giant delay is hitting me crazy hard. Another year. Fuck me

My mediport was removed this morning. It was an in-office procedure and I was awake for it. Blech ick ewww creepy. I am at my medical best when I am unconscious.

I was crazy anxious about having it removed. I can’t quite figure out why. I really like Dr. Surgeon. He’s so my speed. And I knew it was no big deal in comparison to some of the other stuff I’ve already done. I guess the “being awake for it” part freaked me out. I knew the action would be right below my collar bone and Dr. Surgeon would be working pretty close to my face so I was worried I’d see too much. But, summoning all the grace and maturity I’ve worked to achieve in my 45 years, I turned my head, shut my eyes and thought of England until it was over.

Warning for the squeamish: here comes the step-by-step of the procedure as much as I remember.

My appointment was at 9. I’ve been to the same waiting room a lot lately. Dr. Surgeon and Dr. Plastic Surgeon share a suite of offices. I’ve been seeing Dr. Plastic Surgery weekly to have my expanders filled but that’s another post.

Sweet Nurse took me back just before 9 and led me down a new hallway to their procedure room. There was a table with two big operating room lights above it. There was a silver metal tray with a white drape over invisible lumpy instruments. There was a consent form for me to sign and a gown for me to put on.

Sweet Nurse left the room and Walter pointed out an OLD piece of equipment. It looked like it was in a science fiction movie from the 70s. I was hoping we wouldn’t walk out of the room saying, “The doctor blew it,” with another head attached to my shoulders. It was a big orange block with knobs. It could have been a conversation piece the decorator thought would be a kitschy little touch in the corner.

Sweet nurse came back in with Dr. Surgeon a minute later. He said, “Oh, you’re getting your hair back.” I said, “Yeah, a little bit.” He said, “That must feel great. I wouldn’t know because our hair is going in different directions - yours is coming back and mine is going away.” See - what’s not to like?

I got on the table and they flattened me out. Sweet Nurse used an over-sized sponge saturated with some dark yellow liquid to clean my skin. Some of it dripped down the side of my neck and onto the table. I don’t know what the stuff was, but I can’t wash it off.  I’m sure it’s fine.

Dr. Surgeon said he was going to make the incision in the same place where he inserted the mediport so I’d just have one scar. He said he was going to numb it with lidocaine which might burn a little and that I’d feel a needle prick and some tugging. I closed my eyes before I could see the size of the needle. I did feel the needle prick, but it was nothing. It didn’t burn. There was definitely tugging. He was sliding the needle deeper and shallower, back and forth under my skin around and under the old cut. He pulled the needle out altogether and moved it over a few times. But the entire scar is only about an inch-and-a-half (just used the tape measure to check) so it wasn’t a whole lot of territory to cover.

Then I felt pressure run along the length of it as he made the cut. Blehhhh. He pushed some gauze on there and held it down with some pressure. He said, “This is so much easier when I’m sober.” And Sweet Nurse laughed like a wife in a long marriage laughs. I know, super lame joke. But it was like Benihana chef patter. I’m a sucker for it.

Then Dr. Surgeon said, "Oh, it shifted in there a little.” He said it in a calm way, but I’d prefer to have not heard it. He asked me to turn my head a little more so my chin didn’t interfere with his hand. Then he started tugging and snipping. Medical scissors are so loud. Such a crisp “SNIP” each and every time. And there were at least 5 or 6 snips to get it loose. And then more tugging.

He said, “Do either of you want to see it?” I said, “Nope!” as Walter said, “Sure!” I didn’t want to be the only one not to see it so I said, “Oh alright” and opened my eyes. It looked just like the demo model he showed me in his office when I met him in January. It had a teeny bit of blood on it, but it wasn’t gory at all. And it seemed to be all in one piece so phew.

Then he had to stitch me up. I caught a quick glimpse of a lonnnng thread before I could look away. Dr. Surgeon asked me to turn my head a little more to get my chin out of the way again. He said the stitches would all dissolve. Then Walter and Dr. Surgeon got to chatting because you absolutely want to give your surgeon something else to concentrate on while he’s working on you. All the while I was feeling the pulling and hearing the snipping that  accompanies getting stitches, Walter was finding out why they don’t use the kind of stitches that had to be removed anymore like he got when he was a kid. Turns out Dr. Surgeon still uses the non-dissolving kind in certain situations, like when a section of skin has to be removed and the tension on the stitches would be greater than on a straight incision like mine where the skin is more likely to meet evenly. I caught Sweet Nurse’s eye during this exchange - she was standing by my head where I was looking to the side. I’m sure I looked appaled and she wrinkled her nose at me as if to say, “Icky!” Then Walter must have held up his hand to show his scars on his knuckles and Dr. Surgeon said they still use the non-dissplving kind on joints because the movement causes more tension. Walter asked how many stitches I’d need. Dr. Surgeon said all the stitches were internal and on two levels. He said 3 stitches on the deeper level and a long running stitch on the surface cut.

Walter asked what the big orange machine in the corner did and the doctor said it was used to cauterize wounds. He said he’d worked there for 20 years and it was there when he started and already an old piece of equipment then. Glad I didn’t need it.

Dr. Surgeon and Sweet Nurse decided to use glue on my incision instead of a bandage. Dr. Surgeon teased Sweet Nurse that she wanted to use up their glue so she could see the handsome young sales rep they buy the glue from sooner. Honestly, the patter. I’m sure they go through the same routine several times a week. Dr. Surgeon said the glue was like super glue and it may itch and to try not to pick it. He said it’d wash away in a few weeks.

Then it was over. I thanked Dr. Surgeon for all he’d done for me and he wished me luck and said maybe he’d see me around in the hallways when I came to see Dr. Plastic Surgeon. We shook hands and he and Sweet Nurse left the room. Dr. Surgeon was the second medical person I met after my diagnosis and now I’m all done with him. Walter checked and they started working on me at 9:03. I was in my car at 9:26. 

I still have anxious stomach, although writing this definitely made it a little better.

It’s so nice to be totally done with something.

Well, Monday July 18th is my surgery.

I know you guys are worried about me and how I’m doing and how we’re going to handle it. Walter is going to be home with me thanks to a flexible job (with tremendous insurance). The girls are going to be in day camp from 9:00 to as late as 6:00 for the next 2 weeks. I’m allowed to drive after 2 weeks.

No one is going to visit me in the hospital because I remember visiting my dad when he was in the hospital and I don’t want anyone to have a similar image of me in their minds for the rest of their lives.

I’m sure you all remember that I’m young. But in case you’ve forgotten, let me remind you what all the doctors agree upon. It is a medical fact that I am young.

And as a medically young person, they give you the fully loaded package of treatment because they assume you can tolerate it well and that you have more to gain in terms of years to live after successful treatment. So I’m taking the most aggressive route to reduce the odds of recurrence and having a bilateral mastectomy. Since one of my lymph nodes tested positive for cancer on the left side, all the lymph nodes will be removed on the left side. My right side’s lymph nodes (and arm pit) will remain, in my surgeon’s words, unmolested.

My chemo really demolished the tumor. My oncologist was practically giddy when she showed me the MRI. She said she only shows them to patients when they’re really good. She showed me a side-by-side of the MRI when I was diagnosed compared to the MRI the Monday after chemo ended. You can’t see the tumor at all anymore. And it was pretty big to start with - over 5cm. My oncologist said she had hoped it would shrink fast since it grew so fast, but this surpassed her expectations. My surgeon told me he thought it was really exciting to not see the tumor on the MRI, too.

But (isn’t there always a but), they both said that while the MRI is a great diagnostic tool they won’t really know until after surgery how much, if any, cancer is left. You have to actually get in there and see it in real life as opposed to an image of it.

My oncologist said that even if the surgical findings prove to be as positive as the MRI suggests, they will probably still give me radiation. The protocol of having chemo before surgery is only 10-15 years old. She said when they used to do surgery first, they couldn’t see the direct effect of the chemo on the tumor because it was already out. They’re all confident chemo before surgery is the way to go now. But it’s made them less sure of the need for radiation to treat cancers like mine. And while they’re not sure if radiation is always necessary now, they still recommend it. Especially if you’re medically young.

My plastic surgeon (the only surgeon I was sure I’d have one day) prescribed me a LOT of pain medication. This has scared me more than anything else. She’s lovely and I like her. She’s an interesting mix of “Go to the East Meets West store and buy relaxation CDs” and “Here are prescriptions for Xanax, Percocet and Narcoset so if one doesn’t work you can try another.” I’m a big fan of not being in pain, but I’m nervous since I’ve never been in a position to need medication like this before. I’ve never even had prescriptions before my cancer. I have at least a dozen of those bottles at home now. The only prescription we used to have in the house was for the girls’ fluoride. (NJ doesn’t fluoridate the water. Parts of California do, but our county does not).

My plastic surgeon told me stories of 2 women she operated on who didn’t need any pain medication at all. She also told me the reason she prescribes Xanax is because her neighbor had a bilateral mastectomy and suffered from muscle spasms after surgery. My plastic surgeon thought that made sense because they have to put tissue expanders in behind your muscle wall to build space for the implants. So now she preemptively prescribes the muscle relaxer because her philosophy is why make women suffer if there’s a way around it.

The permanency of the surgery freaked me out more than chemo. Remember how freaked I was about losing my hair? And I knew that was temporary. I’m going to have reconstructive surgery (that one will probably be in February), but it’s not the same as growing back. What can I do? The curse of the medically young.

Speaking of hair, it’s staring to grow back a little. My head looks like the girls when they were bald babies. It’s super fine on top with a little more on the sides. I’m probably still 2 months out from throwing away these Goddamn hats.

Oh my eyebrows and eyelashes fell out. I think I have 8 eyelashes on the top of my left eye and 14 on my right. No lashes on the bottom of either eye. And they didn’t fall out until after chemo was totally over. The slower the hair grows, the longer it takes to fall out. And since it grows slowly, it will take a long time to grow back. Hey, another thing to look forward to I guess. If I can figure out how to use makeup I can at least camouflage these missing features until they grow back.

I’m sorry to make you all wonder and worry with no word from me, but the break since chemo ended wouldn’t have been as restorative if I’d been thinking about surgery the whole time. I like to say I spent the break living in the moment or living mindfully because it sounds better than living in denial.

I feel as ready as I’ll ever be for surgery. I’m weirdly calm about it. It’s scheduled for 11:00 in the morning, California time. I’m not sure how long it will last because I forgot to ask when I saw the doctor last week. They told me months ago and I want to say somewhere between 4 to 6 hours. What’s it to me? I’ll be unconscious.

Walter will let you know how the surgery went whenever it’s over

I have cancer pants and a chemo hoodie.

My cancer pants started out as my comfy jeans. They’re the least binding pants I own. I knew that when I took them off in the doctor’s office they wouldn’t leave a mark. Ah, the good ol’ days when my biggest concern at the doctor’s office was that my pants would leave a mark.

I wore those jeans to every early appointment. Go to the doctor to check out my lump? Comfy jeans. Time to get a mammogram? Comfy jeans. How about an MRI? Comfy jeans.

I figured out what the drill would be for all office visits after my first appointment.  "Here’s a gown. Please take off everything from the waist up.“ It just made sense to keep wearing the jeans that didn’t squish me.

And then I played a game with myself. For some of these appointments, I knew there was no chance of disrobing. What should I wear to have my blood drawn? What should I wear to go wig shopping? What should I wear for the meeting with the social worker?  My cancer pants, of course!

I am winning my game. I’ve averaged 3 cancer or cancer-adjacent appointments a week. And I have worn the exact same pair of jeans to all of them. Every doctor appointment and chemo treatment and test. Every single one.

So I no longer own comfy jeans. I own cancer pants.

I also have a chemo hoodie. One of my Favorite People sent me her favorite hoodie to wear during chemo so I’d feel like she was there with me. Not the same style as her favorite - the actual hoodie she wore. I love it. And I’m delighted that today, Friday June 10th, I wore that hoodie to the last chemo appointment I had.  

So I have cancer pants and a chemo hoodie. I’m going to wash the hoodie, put it in a drawer and hopefully never look at it again. I’m too scared to throw it away. I’m afraid that I’ll jinx being done with chemo forever if I get rid of it.  That’s how medical science works, right?

And pretty soon my cancer pants will be sitting in the drawer with the hoodie for a month. I have one more appointment Monday before a 4-week break. Then no appointments of any kind until July 13th.

I’m so ready to get away from cancer treatments for awhile.

I miss seasons. I never, ever, ever thought I would. I thought I was a forever summer kind of girl. And maybe I would be if it was consistently in the low 80s during the day and low 70s at night with gentle trade winds blowing through the palm trees (Let’s keep kicking around that Hawaii trip, Walter). But here in Northern California, the year felt like it slid by without anything to mark time passing.

Of course I was super happy not to deal with snow this winter. I was delighted to not hop over one slushy curb puddle. It was a joy to never have a panicked search for a missing mitten before school in the morning.

But I really miss Spring. Maybe cold snowy winters are worth it after all because I especially miss Spring Fever. God, that feeling on the first warm day when you can’t wait to be outside and feel the sun. When you finally get to emerge from hibernation. It never happened here.

I mean, I know the seasons happened here, but it’s crazy different from home. As I understand it, everything’s supposed to start turning brown in Summer. I don’t know what Fall is supposed to be like. It should be wet in Winter and green in Spring. The drought is still lingering and messing everything up so maybe it’d all seem better with normal rainfall.

For me, it all feels off and kind of less-than. No changing leaves or cold October cheeks. No hope for a White Christmas. No day you can safely pack away your sweaters until next year.

Because that’s the thing I always forget and don’t like about the weather here. I spend part of every day chilly. I know some people love it (shout out to Walter number 2!), but not me. Even the 90 degree days turn into 50 degree nights. Chilly. Sweater weather. Good for grapes - bad for me.  

But It finally feels like a marker of time’s passage today. Like something has changed.  It’s the last day of school and I totally have that feeing of freedom I had as a kid. I am so excited about no more school. No more packing lunches. No more dragging people out of bed. No more homework. Hot damn!

The weather is the same, but all of a sudden it feels like Summer. I’ll take it.

Things are chugging along as planned and not much to update. This blog was so cathartic for me in the beginning when I was overwhelmed with a new diagnosis and tests and treatment information, but now that we’re in year 5 (it’s been at least that long, right?) of treatment being the same week after week, I’m feeling less and less inspired. And there’s nothing new to report.

So if I see something, I’ll say something.

Until then, I’m glad to see your career’s going so good.

For the last few weeks, my red blood cells have been “drifting” lower. I haven’t felt any differently, but they’ve steadily decreased enough to raise a red flag. Chemo can sometimes diminish red blood cells, but my oncologist wanted to make sure it wasn’t some other issue, like any bleeding I wan’t telling her about (spoiler - I’m not bleeding). She asked lots of questions about places I could have been bleeding. But since I haven’t been bleeding from anywhere (yeah!), she wanted to rule out internal bleeding (boo!).

So now I have a gastroenterologist. On the bright side, I can cross off another department I’ve patronized at the big medical building. Maybe before this is over I’ll hit them all. I went with one of the girls to X-ray (nothing broken - test to see why she’s short - she just is for now but she’ll grow up fine) so I’m crossing X-ray off, too. It’s cheating a little, but I think it’s like having a layover in a state you’ve never visited. The airport counts until you get to go there and look around for real. Since there were no external signs of bleeding and to be as thorough as possible, my gastroenterologist scheduled me for a colonoscopy and endoscopy for Tuesday, the 19th.

On Monday, the 18th I had a blood transfusion. Two units of A+. My appointment was at 10:00 and it took until 3:30 to get both units. Even Walter can’t take that much time off work, so I went by myself. Walter had to leave work early anyway to pick up the girls at 2:30.

I really didn’t want to get the transfusion. I know it’s to make me feel and be better, but I really wasn’t feeling bad or tired. I was choking back tears when they started the blood because seeing the big red bags come out of the cooler and all the double-checking they did to make sure they were the correct units for me freaked me out. I also had just signed the release saying I understood the teeny tiny chance of the possible risks associated with getting a blood transfusion. Plus I feel like a failure that I can’t even make my own blood right anymore. And it’s a bummer to sit in the infusion room with everyone getting chemo all day, especially since I’d just been there for two hours on Friday. The transfusion was scheduled for Monday so I wouldn’t have to skip chemo on Friday and so I’d have boosted red blood cells before my procedures on Tuesday. In preparation for the colonoscopy, I was on a liquid diet on Monday so I packed Jello, Gatorade and chicken broth to eat/drink during the transfusion.

Monday night, I started the prep for the colonoscopy. I had a sense of what it’d be like from all the medical information I received at Late Show University. I swear, if there’s a medical procedure, someone who worked there has had it and I’ve been in the room when they talked about it. Not only did the prep stuff do what it was supposed to do, it also made me throw up twice that night. And I knew I still had to drink the second dose the next morning. Don’t tell my gastroenterologist, but I drank like ¾ of each dose. It was the best I could do.

Tuesday brought me back to the Surgicenter at the medical building. Walter had to take me because they don’t let you drive home after. I didn’t have anesthesia, but I did have some serious sedatives. The last thing I remember is the nurse spraying some numbing stuff in the back of my throat for the endoscopy, which was the first procedure, and me saying, “Blech!” and the nurse saying, “I know it doesn’t taste good.”

I was definitely loopy in recovery. I know a nurse gave me crackers. I’m sure I looked like a squirrel eating them - she either held the cracker to my mouth or I picked one up myself with both hands and took tiny bites. I know the doctor came by and I got the all clear - no internal bleeding or any other bad things she could have found (yeah!) but I must have asked Walter 5 times what she said after she left. Apparently I gagged a lot during the endoscopy. My throat still hurts. And I know we stopped to get a turkey sandwich on the way home because I was starving and I’m pretty sure I looked lobotomized while I ate that, too. The gastroenterologist said I don’t have to have a colonoscopy again until I’m 50, but good luck scheduling me for that appointment.

I almost forgot the only truly great thing about this whole drifting blood drama. When I was talking to my oncologist about dreading the night before the colonoscopy thanks to all my friends who’d said it was awful, she said, “Well, at least you won’t have to think about it again for 10 years.” It makes me happy that she said 10 years like it’s a given for me.

So I suppose the chemo is causing my red blood cell drift. I have 8 more rounds, one every Friday, until I’m done with chemo. I hope these 2 units of blood get me through it.