I didn’t have to be at the radiation center at 8:30am. What a delicious luxury!
Before I post vids of yesterday’s final sessions of radiation and chemotherapy, I feel compelled to confess I spent a good three hours Sunday drawing up a spreadsheet listing the names, addresses, phone numbers, and hours of all the places I want to eat at in Chi. & Bloomington just as soon as my throat and mouth heal up.
Three freakin’ hours, babies.
Funny thing is, part of the doctor’s orders sheet I got yesterday as I left the rad. center was the appointment time for my follow-up visit with Dr. Wu in two weeks. At that time, acc’d’g to the sheet, Wu will determine if I need to be enrolled in physical therapy and — get this! — swallow therapy programs.
That’s right. I’ll have spent about a month not swallowing anything. That, needless to say, is so wrong that the body simply forgets how to do it. It’s not as though one of these days I’ll just rip an enormous bite off a meatball sandwich and gulp it down as a snake ingests a live rabbit.
My guess is those first swallows will be more along the line of teensy sips of broth for a few days, progressing to soft noodles for a couple of more days, and so on. I won’t be tearing off huge chunks of beef jerky or peanut brittle for a good long while, in other words.
I don’t think I’ll complain though. Ramen noodles in a mild broth would be a gourmet meal to me at this point.
Anyway, I spent much of last night uploading vids from yesterday so here they are:
- Immediately after my last radiation zap, I asked Christy, the fabulous and wonderful radiation technologist, to vid me making sweet love to the radiation gun which, BTW, I both love and hate, not unlike several other sweet lovers I’ve had in my life. The gun did its part in shrinking My Olive Pit™ down to nothing (fingers crossed — we’ll know for sure in June) but it has resulted in my throat on fire, a nasty neck sunburn, an adolescent’s beard, turning me into a weak kitten, more pharyngeal congestion than one could imagine, and other hideousnesses. Still, I wanted to kiss it goodbye:
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- Here, I’m wheeled out of the zapping room and then presented with a certificate of completion:
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- Now, I’m surprised by the appearance of some dear friends, Les, David, and Susan, who showed up unannounced to celebrate with me. It broke me up. Note, I drop the vid cam into my lap and sob. One of the most beautiful moments I’ve ever experienced:
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- Time to ring the radiation bell, with another break down by me. Plus, they tell me to get the hell out and then they give me orders to come back in two weeks for an exam. Just like many another sweet lover, they play with your head!
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I’ll have a couple more vids from the infusion center ceremony tomorrow. Thanks for indulging me. I love you all.
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