so what i did not include in the last entry is that andy and i spent a good portion of last saturday setting up a little photoshoot. for some time, there had been discussions regarding how to celebrate our second anniversary with others in the middle of a pandemic. at some point, andy said, "we're gonna be two!" and a plan was hatched. it involved birthday cake.

monday is the first day of radiation. i get my temperature checked, i get gowned up, i get to confirm my identity (name, date of birth, yes that is a photo of me from two weeks ago with slightly less hair sprouts). then we head around the corner and into the radiation room. i lie down on the table, which of course has my immobilization cast, and a white sheet on top of it all. i get my head and arms seated, as they get the rest of my body positioned. on either side of me, they use the sheet under me to adjust my body ever so slightly into exactly the right place. it is all much the same as the friday dress rehearsal. there are several images of some sort being taken ("take a breath and hold" ... brief buzzing noise ... "you can breathe") as The Baconator moves around, guided from the other room by one of the technicians. the other technician is in the room with me, reading off numbers and making adjustments. after about five minutes? ten? the tech in the room says, "okay, treatment is about to start." i am left alone with The Baconator. i have been told that the actual radiation treatment is completely painless, and you can't feel anything. but you always think, really? come on. there's gotta be SOMETHING, right? but, no. not a thing. it might as well have been the dry run, except for the extra buzzing noises and warning lights occasionally declaring BEAM ON. the "take a breath and hold" plus buzzing noise plus "you can breathe" prompts happen each time The Baconator zaps me with radiation. if it wasn't for that, i could almost take a nap the entire time. at some point during treatment (while the warning lights are off), one of the techs places a thick, flexible, heavy, elastic-y plastic-y thing across my left chest and side. it has a translucent, yellowed color, which makes me feel like it is from the 70's, which is weird. it is called a bolus, and it has been in some sort of warmer, which is almost uncomfortably hot at first, but turns out to be fine. the bolus reduces the depth that the radiation beams actually go into my body; it is often used with post-mastectomy radiation patients. the bolus stays on for some of the treatments, but not all of them. eventually i hear one of the techs say, "bright lights," the overhead lights come on, treatment is done, and i head home.

but wait! monday is not over. later in the afternoon, i head back out into the world for physical therapy. arm bike, shoulder pulley, this time we add some stretchy resistance band exercises. then into the exam room to work on my cording. no swearing this time; there are definitely still cords to work on, though not quite as bad as last time. we are chatting as she manipulates my arm, and i am noticing lots of stretching and prodding but am not totally paying attention. she finishes and says, "well, go ahead and stretch your arm over your head." i raise my eyebrow at this request, which has been an impossibility for well over six weeks now. and i raise my left arm over my head. YOU ARE MAGIC, i whisper-shout. i look forward to our next magic session on wednesday.

on tuesday, it is back to radiation. as you might expect, it is not much different than the day before.

wednesday is.. a little busy. that morning, i decide to order a second monitor for my work from home situation (i have been using my old laptop as a second monitor using some software, but it was getting a bit glitchy). i fully expect to pick it up on thursday, but as it turns out, it is almost immediately available. so my day becomes: radiation at riverside; monitor pickup at micro center; scarfing down a mcdonalds cheeseburger and fries in the parking lot before my next appointment; physical therapy; next door to giant eagle to pick up a few grocery items.

thursday and friday are, of course, more radiation. i realize that i have five more weeks of these, so i decide to try and pay attention to the order of the imaging and the positions of The Baconator and the timing of the bolus and exactly how many times i am getting treated and from what direction. i mean, i've got nothing else to do. however, on both of these days, i am unexpectedly required to do extra thinking, distracting me from my mission. on thursday, the tech more often than not asks me to let a little air out during the breathing portion of the treatment festivities; and on friday, the tech more often than not asks me to take in a little MORE breath. the former is fine, but the latter is almost impossible. somehow i manage to do it. i ask one of the techs about it afterwards, and she says that it happens sometimes; i was probably just positioned in the cast a little far up or down each day. also on friday, the bolus wasn't warmed up enough at first, so they applied it during the last treatments, so everything was out of order anyway. one of these days i will be able to account for each Baconator treatment zap. it's either that, or stare at the drop ceiling, or think about what is actually happening.

saturday was a lazy morning, then the afternoon turned into a flurry of Getting Things Done. it was a lovely day, so yardwork happened, and then we ended up sweeping and vaccuuming and swiffering almost the whole house. i've been doing a lot of PT stretches and exercises on the floor, so the dust bunnies have been at eye level lately, driving me batty. CLEAN ALL THE THINGS!

so week 35 was both eventful and uneventful. no radiation side effects yet, i am told i shouldn't be expecting those until next week. i'm armed with bottles of aloe vera, and hoping that's all i will need. we'll find out. let's do this.