Some Girls Prefer Carnations: Whole-brain radiation--DONE

Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Whole-brain radiation--DONE

I received a certificate today for completing two weeks of whole-brain radiation. Whew! That was more stressful that I'd anticipated. I'm feeling pretty glad that the ordeal is over. I don't think the side effects are done accumulating yet. My hair started falling out in earnest today, for example, and my head feels burn-y both inside and out, leading to the following one-hit wonder earworm from 1993 (middle school):

This head [bed] is on fire, with passionate love.
The neighbors complain about the noises above.
...
My therapist said not to see her no more
She said you're like a disease, without any cure
She said I'm so obsessed that I'm becoming a bore, oh no.

--band is called James, song is called "Laid"--it's not a very good or appropriate song for a family blog like this one, but it's what happens to be playing in my head ALL THE TIME ever since I thought of the words that my head is on fire. Which was days ago! Extra-strength Tylenol helps to quench the flames.

The other earworm that has been plaguing me is from a save-the-rainforest movie we watched in maybe third grade or so. K, up in the northwoods, or my multitude of siblings, perhaps you'll remember this with me? "The RAINforest...the tropical RAINforest." In my head it has become, "A BRAIN tumor...inoperable BRAIN tumor." Such a catchy jingle!

The fatigue has situated in the bones a little bit. Not as bad as chemo, but definitely feeling fatigued in addition to the clinical sleepiness I mentioned before. It sorta feels like walking around with cinder blocks strapped to your bones. But I'm doing very well listening to my body and recovering. Not doing too much at all, I promise. So much sleep to be had!

Managing to fit in some holiday family time, too! My dear friends A&M&E brought us the baked pieces for building and decorating gingerbread houses, so we've been working on those here and there. Also, before my mom's departure she took us for a spa pedicure. We now have festive toenails!

Building the houses is the hardest part! They needed to harden for a day or two before we decorated. The girls are having a ball with this project! Usually when we've done gingerbread houses we've used the hard store-bought kind and then assembled with hot glue, because it's so much easier. These might be our first authentic gingerbread houses that are actually edible!

And let's do a few more Puerto Rico vacation photos, shall we?

moon (lower left) over San Juan

E being pushed into shore on her body board

All of my loves enjoying the ocean at Condado Beach.

3 comments:

LoriDecember 7, 2018 at 6:25 PM
Mmmm. Love reading your blog.
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kennaDecember 13, 2018 at 7:56 AM
I remember that movie but not the songs so much! I , quite often still, get a montage of snippets of George straight songs from a commercial for his tape that came out around the same time stuck in my head for days. It's so bizarre the weird things our brains hold on to. No pun I'll intended...
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Books I've read recently

TRUTH AND BEAUTY by Ann Patchett "'Grief isn't something to "be gotten through." It has no life of its own like that, it's just plain and simply there.'" and "History is strangely incomprehensible when you're standing in the middle of it."
THE PATRON SAINT OF LIARS by Ann Patchett "I wanted to be able to stop hoping that she would turn into something else."
MY OWN COUNTRY by Abraham Verghese "I remember the acts of human kindness that illumine our world."
IN THE COMPANY OF CHEERFUL LADIES: No. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY NOVEL #6 by Alexander McCall Smith
CEREMONY by Leslie Marmon Silko
THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG by Muriel Barbery "There's so much humanity in a love of trees, so much nostalgia for our first sense of wonder, so much power in just feeling our own insignificance when we are surrounded by nature..."
A WALK IN THE WOODS by Bill Bryson
THE LACUNA by Barbara Kingsolver "'Soli, let me tell you. The most important thing about a person is always the thing you don't know.'"
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FACE by Lucy Grealy "Sooner or later we all have to learn the words with which to name our own private losses..." and "Part of the job of being human is to consistently underestimate our effect on other people..." and "Sometimes the briefest moments capture us, force us to take them in, and demand that we live the rest of our lives in reference to them."
WATER FOR ELEPHANTS by Sarah Gruen "Age is a terrible thief. Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back. It makes you ache and muddies your head and silently spreads cancer throughout your spouse."
THE HELP by Kathryn Stockett "'I have decided not to die.'" and "Oh, I just break down then. It's like two years a doing and trying and hoping all come out at once."
THE TENNIS PARTNER by Abraham Verghese "Would that I had the chance in my sons' lifetime and my own to one day explain to them all the forces that moved me."
THE BLUEST EYE by Toni Morrison "And then the tears rushed down his cheeks, to make a bouquet under his chin."
REMARKABLE CREATURES by Tracy Chevalier "My life led up to that moment, then led away again, like the tide making its highest mark on the beach and then retreating."
RAMONA QUIMBY, AGE 8 by Beverly Cleary "Mrs. Quimby smiled and said, 'I can tell you're beginning to get well when you act like a wounded tiger.'"
THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway "You see, Mr. Barnes, it is because I have lived so very much that now I can enjoy everything so well."
THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN by Kate Morton "The happiest folk are those that are busy, for their minds are starved of time to seek out woe." And, speaking of hospitals: "An irony that a place relying so heavily on routine should operate so resolutely outside time's usual rhythms."
THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins "Of course, the odds have not been very dependable of late."
THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS by Rebecca Skloot "That cancer was a terrible thing."
THE THIEF OF ALWAYS by Clive Barker "Was there some way...to take back the stolen years, and live them here, with the people who loved him, and whom he loved dearly in return?"
CUTTING FOR STONE by Abraham Verghese "The world turns on our every action, and our every omission, whether we know it or not." Best book I've read in a year

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Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Whole-brain radiation--DONE

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