Evil Radiation Techs

The Radiation Techs have been so nice, kind and helpful. But, sorry guys, I'm truly sick of seeing you.
You mean well, I know you do. You are the soldiers, shooting down my tumor as well as doing search and destroy missions in my lymph nodes.
But here we are, at the last week. The techs have coned down to a pin point place on my butt. It's starting to really hurt and I'm getting some very strange imagery as I lay on that damn table.

Chemo and more chemo

Yeah, it's my sixth and last week. But no celebrations yet. I have to go thru the whole Chemo regime all over again.
That means a nice big dose of Mitomycin on Monday and then a whole week of that damn 5-FU in it's little evil yellow balloon. God I hate that stuff.
My gums turn white, my blood looks watery and everything taste bad.
This time is worse then the first. My energy level really plummets. I feel like I'm constantly walking uphill and it all seems a whole lot heavier then before.
On the plus side, I know that all the worse symptoms of the chemo will end in a couple of weeks.
Of course there are all those latent 'side effects' like heart disease and blood problems...but I'm only gonna deal with the ones I can immediately feel.

The Final Countdown

Finally arrived at the Last Week! HOORAY!!
Now they are coning down my butt. Meaning they are just targeting the site where the tumor was found.
My butt is starting to feel Quite Sore!

Coning Down

Got some bad news today. I thought I had 5 weeks of treatment but I just found out there are actually six. Bummed me out.
However, on the plus side, they have started to cone me down. Which means they are radiating less and less of my body. Rather then the all over blitz of my groin and butt they had been doing up till now, they will concentrate more and more on the problem areas.
So they are finishing up my groin. Here you can see clearly and scientifically how coning down works. They stop radiating my little lymphys this week.
And they will be doing the same with the butt....but for a longer period of time, due to that pesky tumor, damn him! I do hope he's dead or dying.

Tumor Talk

.....Message.......
Hello....you don't know me. And, if you are reading this now, I am probably dead.
I am Imelda's tumor! I left this message secretly on Imelda's computer (it was Very hard to access the keyboard from my position) in case anything ever happened to me.
I just want to give MY side of the story. I am not a villain. I am not Evil. I want what we all want. To live long and prosper in peace, to have children, to form a community of friends and relations. I am not an illegal alien. I have lived inside of Imelda her whole life and share many of her values.
We have only reached this parting of the ways because I was willing to DO something about my dreams, OUR dreams, that she was too timid to even imagine. YES, I have strived for immortality. I have had to overcome enormous prejudice and outright hostile action from the rest of Imelda's body in order to reach my personal goals. Against overwhelming odds, I have gotten to where I am today.
Except, as I said, if you are reading this, I am probably no where today. SHE attacked me when I was so willing to live in peace with her. She poisoned me, burned me as if I were some sort of medieval witch. I am not that at all. I simply tried to overcome our mutual enemy: Death. And I am not ashamed that I died trying.
.......End of Message.......

Is it Overkill?

Sometimes I wonder about the radiation treatments...and the chemo too. Is it all overkill? The big guns, the strafing, the nukes, the napalm, poisen gas...you name it. Isn't there a more elegant way to do this? A secret agent who would just go in there and shoot the cancer in the head? Or maybe scratch the cancer on its leg with a poisen tipped umbrella? There is so much collateral damage....meaning me, my butt, my skin, my innards..you name it.
If you don't know the story of the poisen umbrella, here it is:
Spy Killed by Poisen Umbrella

Hair today/Gone tomorrow

Let's fast forward to week 4. That's when all the fun really began.
I started to lose my hair, lots of it. Here's one morning's worth. I continue to lose the hair at that rate for about 10 days and then it slows to just 'a lot' . Thank goodness I really have a lot, cause it hardly shows at all. But I can feel it. I'm down to about half of what I had. What will happen when I get the next dose of chemo?
Oh, let me add, that some people don't care about hair loss, like my brother Jon who, coincidentally, has a lot of hair loss himself. And many women don't care too. GOOD FOR THEM!
But I care. It's the outward manifestation of an inward fuck up, to paraphrase the Baltimore catechism.