Tore Myself a New One

Armpit that is. The range of motion required to swing a golf club is not covered by typical yoga stretches. The first few holes hurt a little. I tried to figure out what a half swing felt like, but I'm not one to shy away from the opportunity to murder a ball. By the 5th / 6th hole it felt more like a stretched bruise feeling. I'll be better tomorrow for what I endured today.

We only played 16 holes. Not bad considering a few years ago 12 used to be my limit before I was just wiped out from the game. I could play 18 but I would be dragging my butt for the last 5-6 holes. And I only played once last year. I wasn't exhausted when I came off the course today... Just tired of aching. And Paul was getting a little... disinterested with the game (How weird is that?!). I did get a par on one hole. That's something.

For me golf is not about the score at the end of the game. It's about that one fabulous drive that went for miles. That one amazing chip that hit the flag. That one 18 foot put that curved just a little to the right then paused briefly on the edge of the cup before draining. That's what makes golf great - not the fact that I totaled up the score card at the end and got 154.

I was pleased to see that some of the roses I had transplanted onto the golf course from the shadowy office window garden where they had been growing (or about to die) were thriving. I'm still miffed that the greens guys hacked my raspberries on 1 Legends.

Time to set my cowboy hat aside. I have enough hair now. I wore it on the golf course today and when I took it off I had the oddest hat head... a dent in the top of my scalp where the hair had conformed to the shape of the hat!

Done with the Big Gun!

Yay! No more full blast radiation treatments! They really aren't that bad. It's the consequential burn that sucks. I have 5 more boosts and then I'm all done! (With the exception of all the follow up poking and prodding.) The boosts should be easy enough. They are targeting the scar location only and my breast hasn't been nearly as damaged as my under arm and under breast areas.

It Burns! It burns!

Hey, look. I have hair, my own eyebrows and eyelashes! Wink said that was pretty impressive because eyelashes don't always come back. WHAT!? I didn't even know that was a possibility! Eyelashes are essential.

My burn hurts so bad. I can barely stand to move at all. It hurts to touch and nothing feels good on, not even the air.
I have a sock tucked into my armpit just so I don't have to feel burnt skin touching raw skin.

It's been 3 days since my last zap and it just keeps getting worse and worse. You know how bad you imagine it would feel to grate your fingers, so you're usually really careful when using a grater? But now and then when you aren't paying attention and you do grate your fingers, it's not quite as bad as you imagined it would be. Well my skin feels far worse than what you would imagine grating your fingers would feel like.

The pain is bad enough that I can't sleep through the night. The hot flashes don't help any either.
This is not unlike what poison ivy feels like.

Only 1 More Week's Worth!

As of tonight there are only 7 more radiation treatments! And 5 of those are just a localized boost. No more torturing my underarm and underboob!

This afternoon after my shower i made the mistake of putting a tiny bit of baby powder under my breast. I was just soooo tired of feeling wet and yucky. Big mistake. All that loose wet skin dried instantly and split. A patch about the size of large flattened marshmallow peeled off, just like that!... Get the polysporin.

I'm very tired. But that's probably because I was up until 3:30am doing a web project and then got up again at 7:30 to go painting. Actually, I didn't get out of the house until 9:00. Still put in 5 hours at the school today. I get tomorrow off. The janitors are waxing the floors and I won't be able to walk on them until Friday. Yay! Day off!

Managing Energy

Every 3-4 days I find myself full of energy. I take advantage of this strength by getting so many chores out of the way. It then takes 3-4 days to recover...hmmmm.
Almost finished the laundry, now to de-clutter the office.

How's the Radiation Going?

Not a lot to blog about if there's not a lot to complain about! :-)

My eyebrow's are 3/4 back. Most of them have sprouted but they need a bit more length.
My eyelashes are 1/2 grown in. I can feel them from left to right but they are only about 1/4 as long as they will be and very fine. Baby lashes.
My moon face has mostly gone away. I was looking a bit like a male orangutan.

Radiation:
The swelling is back. And I'm supposed to be massaging to help with drainage. But not too hard. It's not very comfortable.
There's a lot of reddening, especially under neath and under arm. My skin is getting thin. The nurse was insistent that I should be using cordizone cream / polysporin as well as the glaxol based cream.

Everytime they position me under the radiation thingy I'm reminded of the time I was using a microscope as a kid and zoomed in too close and cracked the slide. (That would be me about to be cracked!)

10 Rads Down

Only 20 more to go!
Soooooo itchy!!! Applying ointment thrice daily does not relieve the itch.

Yesterday's appointment was late by an hour and 20 minutes. The gentleman next to me (waiting for his wife) commented about the delays, to which I replied, "It would be so much better with a take a number system so that you could tell if you had time to grab a coffee or not. He immediately jumped up and offered to go get me one... and he wouldn't take my money! The kindness of strangers.

There's a 40ish looking woman who's appointment is often scheduled right around mine. So far our appointments have never been on time, so I get her frustration. But she WHINES!!!! Holy Cow! I just want to club her. Every time she opens her mouth this high pitched, cracklely, about to cry, oh-woaw-is-me noise comes out (it's not like she has a cold or anything!). She cries and makes a fuss every time - even when they are only running 15 minutes behind. Then when she's finished, she puts on her business suite and heads out the door like nothing happened.

Another reason to be grateful: I'm not her.

Must ask if I can start taking Glucosamine again. My knee is big time ow. Crawling around on the school floors doesn't help much either (painting gig).

Hey! My eyebrows are just beginning to fill in. And I have the tiny, tiniest little eye lashes you ever saw, or felt because most of them are invisible to the naked eye. If eyelashes really do grow back (are constantly growing) they WHY do I not ever get really long ones? So unfair that the prettiest lashes are reserved for boys.