Another one done and many thanks to Linda for Driving Miss Daisy on a rainy day. It was summer monsoon crazy for a while and now it’s back to it feels like a sauna.
11 down and my ass is dragging….
I am so tired I can barely keep my eyes open today….
T-I-R-E-D….yes I know Sandra, I am supposed to keep my sunny side up and all that, but I swear I am just a wee bit cranky and I can’t sleep right now for whatever addled reason. My busy brain needs to pipe down and keep quiet.
So I go in for radiation. I get zapped and I have a check in with my radiation oncologist whom I love but she is telling me how I have to keep my left arm up all the time – that is because it’s the left breast getting the daily zap of radiation.
But how am I supposed to do this all the time? Am I supposed to develop a Monty Python-like gait or something? And yes, I am now up to TWO creams three times a day, and trying to find comfortable wire-free bras and camisoles that give me a little support, don’t hurt, and don’t make me see a toothless mountain mama with low slung udders in the mirror. Sorry but I hate, hate, hate not looking right under clothes and this whole no real bra thing or underwire thing during radiation is obviously necessary, but it is very unattractive.
Yes, it is all about me. And I don’t have the largest chest, but I don’t have the smallest either and I am too damn old to look cute bra-free.
Oh this weekend the fatigue caught up with me and I fell asleep, yes kid deep sleep asleep at my friend’s house after dinner. Sponge Bob Square Pants put me right out apparently. But before that I had a swell time playing with the cutest kittens. 
Many thanks to my hot mama Sherry for Driving Miss Daisy today…she had a mammogram after driving me to radiation. That concept can’t be much fun.
And oh yes, they were filming a movie in my neighborhood today…that was kind of fun.
The cross-eyed slightly cranky pants tired gal is going to bed now.
10 down, 25 to go.
Yes….number nine was today and I am sleepy now. I have officially put in myt 40 hours of work so a nap is in order.
Today I wore my most obnoxious and beloved summer capris to jazz up the radiation waiting room…and thankfully it wasn’t Africa hot in that waiting room today, either.
I have survived another 5 days of rads…YAY me!
Now a joke someone sent me today titled “A Wish to Live Forever”:
I met a fairy today that said she would grant me one wish.
“I want to live forever,” I said.
“Sorry,” said the fairy, “I’m not allowed to grant wishes like that!”
“Fine,” I said, “then I want to die after Congress get their heads out of their asses!”
“You crafty bastard,” said the fairy.
I also would like to pay it forward and point out this cool woman I know named Jen McGowan who is getting props (well-deserved I might add) for creating these little boxes called “Busy Boxes” that get given out to the littlest patients in a local hospital – pediatric patients. I think this is an awesome act of love, so brava Jen!
Happy weekend people!
Wayne resident Jen McGowan said a year and a half ago, at her oldest daughter’s birthday party, she was trying to keep track of which friends had gifted what.
“My kids were just kind of tearing into the presents,” said McGowan, who has three kids under the age of 4. “It just didn’t seem like the way it was supposed to go. Guests had brought these beautiful gifts, and I just thought, ‘you know what—there has to be a better way.’ ”
She thought immediately of donating new trinkets and toys her children receive to Bryn Mawr Hospital, but she didn’t want to burden a busy pediatric unit with things they didn’t need, especially since she discourages her kids from playing with toys at doctors’ offices because of germs.
From that, McGowan came up with the idea of creating “Busy Boxes”: plastic shoebox-sized boxes with age-appropriate toys that pediatric patients at the hospital can take home with them
Another one done, and thanks to my darling Sara for taking me!
The sky is cloudy and gray, I am very tired, but mood is positive.
My friend Sherry loves the Phillies, so for her today the photo is the mascot the Phanatic – saw him at my freelance photo shoot the other night.
I am also posting a link to newsletter I got today from the Mayo Clinic on Cancer Fatigue. So if you are interested, CLICK HERE.
So …I started working around 7:30 a.m., stopped to go to radiation and worked through until 6:30 p.m. That on top of freelance photography last evening, and I am TIRED. I haven’t even stopped for dinner yet.
So when I get home the phone rings. “Out of Area” says caller I.D., but I answer anyway.
Someone I do not know asking for me . I ask who it is, and she says she is so and so from The Breast Cancer Relief Foundation. She gives me a website I can check – www.breastcancerrelief.org . And oh she can send me information after I make my pledge.
REALLY???????????????
How did you get my name, address and phone number I ask. She then says stupidly, oh you come up on an auto-dialer for your phone number. So then you magically divine my name I ask.
No response for a moment and then she says she is just a telemarketer in an MCI call center or something like that.
RIIIGGGGHT-O ducky.
So then I decided to land on her after a little more pushing on her part. I said that she had balls to call a woman going through breast cancer treatment and all that financially entails and calling at dinner to ask me to give money. I further told her I believe in two breast cancer non-profits, Breastcancer.org and Living Beyond Breast Cancer.
Ok we’ll put you on the do not call list she says. Hope she does, because oh yes (sorry forgot to mention in my fit of breast cancer pique), this is not the first call from them since I got diagnosed and I never heard of them before this so someone boobalicious is selling deets of breast cancer gals.
What bullshit.
Interestingly enough there is a lot of negativity out there on the web about this bogus bullshit breast cancer fund gobbler BCRF.
So I am paying it forward – DO not give these people money. From what I read they spend more money on themselves then they do on women with breast cancer. And if someone is going to push you to make a donation when you just told them you are in treatment for breast cancer and paying for all that fun, well f*ck ’em.
So Annis D. Tarver, PhD, President of this BCRF? God don’t like ugly and I hope you remember that as you sit in your office making money off poor women going through treatment.
DON’T CALL ME AGAIN!
Ladies, if you get a call from these people, turn them down and even consider turning them in…to your state’s attorney general’s office if the contact persists – by the time you make a pledge to an outfit like this you might as well not. Check out your charities – and there are a lot of large and small charities devoted to breast cancer that are the real deal, so don’t waste your dollars with telemarketing charities.
BCRF are listed as being in New Orleans among other places and I am tempted to suggest everyone call them and ask the president for her home phone number so we can all call her at dinner time:
The Breast Cancer Relief Foundation
615 Baronne Street, Suite 301
New Orleans, Louisiana 70113
(504) 529-3258 Office
(504) 529-3538 Fax
Yes another one done today. My friend Laura took me and we giggled all the way there and back. Laura is one of my amazing Shipley gals from high school, and I was thrilled to know that she also has a “talk to dogs voice”. You see, my sweet man thinks something akin to an alien is inhabiting my body when I talk to dogs, so it was nice to hear someone else is as silly as I am when it comes to dogs…
I am admittedly Ms. Cranky Pants because I could not fall asleep again last night, and to add insult to injury, Comcast in their infinite wisdom decided to take down all the cable and internet in my area last night. I was too tired to read, but couldn’t put myself to sleep watching the boob tube either. To all who have spoken to Ms. Cranky Pants in the last 24 hours I am sorry, but I truly can’t help it.
Today I also met with a nurse who spoke to me about the creams and I started using the Biafine today, although I had already on my own been using Sween Cream and Aloe. Apparently my boob is going to get gross and perhaps under my arm pit too. And oh yes, I won’t be shaving until October most likely. Ick.
I had another freelance photography gig last night. Today’s photo is one of the ones I did not sell. But then again, I overshot on purpose to retain some of my own photos from the night.
Sigh….how many naps can I have in a day do you think?
I was exhausted but feeling good going into radiation today. Once again, Linda drove Miss Daisy and afterwards we went to pick up my mystery prescriptions waiting for me at my local chain drug store.
Hello, can we say STICKER FREAKING SHOCK? The prescriptions were creams and one was $80.00 – Biafine.
Here is where I rant about the insurance and pharmaceutical industry in this country. Mind you, I appreciate that Aetna my insurer has been relatively easy to deal with during breast cancer, but I do *not* appreciate that they refuse to cover even part of the $80 radiation cream that is deemed medically necessary by my doctors. I think that breast cancer gals deserve *whatever* we need, when we need it.
I don’t like that insurance companies can direct treatment versus medical professionals. I have paid into health insurance plans for years, and years, and years. Now that I actually need my benefits, I don’t like feeling like at times I am being nickeled and dimed at the potential expense of my well-being. I have always had doctors that won’t prescribe an aspirin if I don’t need one. And as I sit and listen to the bi-partisan twaddle on the news about the Congress and Senate passing the debt ceiling compromise, and also listen to President Obama spew some prettily laced together words I wonder about all the wonderful things that were supposed to happen with health insurance and healthcare in the U.S. Apparently I am still waiting…but hey ignore the issues, ignore the uninsured, and those like me who had to struggle to get insurance as an individual because we were not offered benefits through our employers.
Sorry, rant over.
Miss Daisy feels much better now. One of my friends was so sweet and left me a little note saying I was remarkable and an inspiration. Most humbly I love her for saying that, but I don’t think I am deserving of such accolades. I am just me and quite frankly a pain in the ass some days….
Onward and upward, one day closer!
Yes…..number 5 was this evening. And yes….technically it is tomorrow because I can’t sleep yet.
Teri took me to number 5 and then we went to Hymie’s for dinner and Yapple Yogurt after.
The waiting room was once again filled with those who do not speak to anyone but stare lots. Of course it could be because they were suffering from not just breast cancer but shoe envy. After all I was wearing one of my two pairs of fabulous summer wedges…
You see, I think Geralyn Lucas had the right idea with the whole lipstick thing. Every day since I started checking out where I am getting my radiation done, I have noticed most women so glum, so tight, so withdrawn inside themselves.
O.k. yes, it’s breast cancer, it’s scary, I am tired as shit and I am flashing along with getting french fried boob, but still? Why look and act and feel gray when you don’t have to? So even if I don’t wear make-up or lipstick every day (hello, it’s disgustingly hot outside and my face feels like it is sweating off these days heat is so getting to me), but well I do try to NOT look like a total schlub.
So for number 5 I wore my super summer Mia cork wedges. Teri asked me how I walked in them (very high for me, my sister who glides, yes glides in super high heels would have giggled). I responded “carefully”.
And the wedges did not get in my way as I hopped out of Teri’s car at one point to snap photos of a GIANT tree that came down with a thud in a thunderstorm!
Bed time for the breast cancer girl.
Saturday I did my first event photography gig since before my surgery. It was this crazy fabulous 40th birthday party downtown and it was totally swanky bubbles.
The theme was white. Even the photographers wore white LOL. I seconded for one of the professional photographers I work with, and it was fun, but I was super tired afterwards. This was an evening affair, so I stayed up past my bed time. But I feel like I have to try to keep moving. I can’t just sleep my life away and well, rads seems like an instant nap tonic.
I picked up another freelance photography job today. It feels good to get back to that, because it feeds the positives in my head.
However, all things are not positive and I am feeling downright cranky about our local transit system – Septa. I had to take one of the regional trains last week out to a station called Malvern which is under construction.
It was the shit hole from hell. Here I am, a woman going through breast cancer treatment, and I think Calcutta might have looked better.
I got off at Malvern and almost passed out after having to deal with the heat and added to that all the stairs then a huge hot macadam path, then I had to walk all the way under the underpass, around the train station, past at least 5 stinking porta potties and who knows reeking dumpsters, thru a creepy ally thing to get to a place at the station where someone could get to me to pick me up at the station.
This is ridiculous and for me it went beyond an inconvenience to unhealthy. Yes I get construction inconveniences, but seriously? Utter bullshit.
I am going to be sending those govie affairs folks a love note.
Todays photo is one of the “outs” from the shoot – I love the pink – it was from the lights on the dance floor. I made it extra zoomy to blur out the faces for these purposes, incidentally, but I still like the photo…
Special thanks to one of my friends who played Good Fairy and left me lucious fresh peaches, blueberries and some amazing tomatoes and other veggies – YUM!!!!!!
No, I will not be ordering seared breast of anything soon. I am done another round and another week dealing with breast cancer bullshit has come to a close. However, getting to rads today was like playing bumper cars in real-time.
On the way there, we are at this crazy intersection waiting to turn left that is a few blocks from the hospital. As poor Linda who was like Mario Andretti today started to turn (she had the right of way and her turn signal on, etc), this obnoxious teenage girl in an SUV decides to cut over from another lane opposing us and almost T-boned us on the passenger side (hello I did not want to wear another car!). She gave Linda the finger so I returned the favor. Childish, yes, but don’t mess with a woman on the way to radiation.
We get to the hospital and they are under construction. A HUGE dump truck driven by a construction worker cuts a bunch of us off as he speeds by on his cell phone. The upside of this is if he had caused an accident, we almost could walk to the Emergency Room.
Then we get to the gated entrance that we stop at to get the ticket on our way down to the parking level reserved for breast cancer patients undergoing treatment. Standing in FRONT of the gate as IN FRONT of us blocking the way were these two women deep in conversation. They looked up at us and I had this visual of two cows looking up from grazing with grass hanging out of their mouths. So I admit, I let the inner voice and giggle have its own way and I said “MOOooove over please”. They did not get it, but Linda and I had fun.
So we thought we were done with it all, until we would our way around another level in the garage and all of a sudden this woman in a white VW beetle of the nouveau variety throws it into reverse and STOPS in the middle of the aisle. No, we could not get by, and yes she was on her cell phone.
Radiation itself was a non-adventure today, but Linda was stuck in the waiting room of rudely staring people while I went to get zapped. The waiting room was unusually crowded, but the crowd instead of being friendly was full of a lot of people who seemed to stare. What they were staring at I have no idea. They glared at me when I came out and asked Linda if I was glowing like a night-light yet. Yes I get not everyone has a sense of humor, but really? No one can have humor or be positive when we’re all a long time dead?
Ok, that is enough from me and adventures in breast cancer radiation for the week. I am tired. T-I-R-E-D.
Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles.
What do we live for if not to make the world less difficult for each other?
– George Eliot
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