Radioactive New Year's Eve

It is New Year’s Eve.  I was up at 6 AM for a 7 AM radiation appointment before going to work.  That is not what anyone envisions for the last day of the year.  I should be on vacation enjoying the holidays, but my vacation time was and is being used to cover all the time associated with ridding my body of uterine cancer cells.  So today, I go to work.

After work, I’ll go home to celebrate.  The problem is I can’t really drink alcohol because my stomach can’t handle it.  And I can’t stay up late because of the fatigue associated with radiation.  So odds are that I won’t even make it until midnight to welcome in the New Year.

I will admit that I’m feeling a little sorry for myself today.  Even though logically I know that I should not.  I should consider myself very lucky because so far I’ve dodged another bullet that could have been so much worse.  So I should be celebrating.  I know there are other people that are waking up today knowing this will be their last New Year’s Eve.  Or wondering how they are going to put food on the table for their family.  So I need to snap out of it.  But once and a while it’s just hard to do it.

This week has been long, and to think it’s only Wednesday.  The week started with my second session of internal radiation and an IV iron infusion.  I will say that the iron infusion is helping with my energy so I should be grateful to have had it.  It looked like an IV of rusty water.  I tried to pretend that it was wine.  But I hardly felt drunk afterwards.

I have counted the days out, and I think radiation will end on January 22^nd.  At that point I will have completed 25 external sessions and 3 internal sessions.  I will have been half naked in front of strangers 28 times.  I will have layed behind a heavy door over six inches think while radiation technicians watch and listen from the other side of the door.

One last thought.  To the woman who cut line in the drive-thru this morning.  I hope that getting your coffee one minute sooner than me was worth making my mood just a little less cheerful.  I saw you were at an awkward angle in the parking lot and I was actually going to let you go ahead of me had you looked up and made eye contact.  Instead you avoided eye contact and jammed your car in front of mine.  Happy Freaking New Year to you.