I was so nervous about my first chemotherapy appointment, I took an antianxiety pill before I went.  I took another (four hours later) right before we started my first infusion.  I soon found that the infusion was no big deal, it didn’t hurt, and I didn’t feel nauseated, at least not right away.  I was so happy and elated about this fact, that I went out with my husband to our local pub, had a beer, and a big meal, complete with bread pudding.  Major nausea four hours later, so I never did that again, and as long as I stayed ahead of the nausea, there wasn’t much in the way of big, scary drama.

I did chemotherapy for so long that it became routine, just something I had to do, like going to a job.  I  had no fears about it, and in some ways actually sort of looked forward to it.  Leave aside the blood draws, the premedication, and the side effects.  What did I do for 2+ hours every other Thursday through A/C, and every Thursday through paclitaxel?  I got lunch and coffee, bought a fashion magazine and a box of Dilettante Truffle Cremes, then went to the 5th Floor to watch cooking shows, knit obsessively and nap.  How awful does that sound?  Yes, I usually felt like crap a few hours later, and for days after that, but while the infusion was being administered?  It was mostly relaxing.  I reclined in bed, and people brought me warm blankies and cookies.  I know that’s not how it is for other cancer patients, but that’s how it was for me.

But today, I went for the radiation simulation appointment.  Let me tell you, while I was doing my chemotherapy, I kind of put it out of my mind why I was doing it.  I just had to do it.  But today they had to get my radiation cradle made, which was sort of cool.  They mold it to out of polyfoam, so I felt like I was a model for Face Off.  But most of the time I was lying on a CT scanning table, looking at the outer rim of a GE Lightspeed scanner.  Lying there, that’s when it hit me – You Have Cancer.  This is officially Big Shit happening in your life.

I’m back to feeling a little more complacent – I’m being treated for Stage 3 breast cancer at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, the best place in the nation, maybe the world, for late stage cancers.  I’m in GREAT hands.  But there is more definitely a higher level of stress in our house.  For me, the trigger is the big white CT scanner.  For Ken, it may be the same thing.  When we were driving away after leaving the facility, he exhaled in this big, slow puff of air.  It’s a sound he ONLY makes when he’s under high emotional stress.  Like he’s trying to keep it together while I’m going through my shit. Which he is.  People think this is hardest on the cancer patient, but I think it’s hardest on the care giver.  Especially someone like Ken.  Most of my catastrophes and heart breaks, he can DO something about, he can blow the demons away.  For example, when I was packing my apartment to move in with him, I was overwhelmed and crying most nights.  Overwhelmed to the point of being immobile.  One tear filled phone call to him, and he was over shifting boxes and hauling trash away until I had one clean, organized corner on one side of the apartment.  He said “Whenever you feel overwhelmed, just take a breath, and look over there.  That’s your corner of calm in the middle of the chaos.  You can look at that, and know that you are going to get through this, and that I am going to help you.  We can do this.  It will be okay.”  And it worked.  It was still a scramble, and at the end I was throwing shit randomly into boxes to sort out later (I think those are still in the storage unit, taped shut), but it turned out okay.  I was passed out in bed with the cat at the new house by 8pm, while he was making a store run getting hot cocoa and chocolate for me, but we made it.

But cancer?  This is one thing he can’t chase away from me by sheer determination and muscle.  And that is hard on him.  And he hates it.

But he comes to ALL the appointments, even to the boob doctors and the gyno-oncologists, when most men don’t dare to venture.  He holds my hand (or my foot, as was the case in the Symphony scanner at Virginia Mason) when I am terrified.  He makes jokes (sometimes) when the doctors are shoving needles into my fibroids to take samples.  He rubs my tummy when I’m crying out from the pain of an endometrial biopsy, because I can’t do it myself.  And today, he waited patiently in the hall, making small talk with Randall, our goat raising, master gardening half of today’s simulation crew, while I was changing into my gown in preparation for the simulation.  I have to say, Randall is fascinating, and extremely entertaining.  If you need good advice on growing pumpkins, or how to build a bed for morels, Randall’s your guy.  He also knows what he’s doing when it comes to keeping you calm while you wait for the doctor, and how to help you to sit up from the scanning table, which is NOT easy.  I’ve been on a lot of scanning tables, and I’m here to tell you, Randall knows his shit.

The doctors arrived, rearranged my position, and then they started tagging my with stickers.  I have a lot of flesh to manipulate, and at one point the doctor was asking for something to hold my well padded shoulder tissue out of range of the scanner.  I’m not sure, but I think the item they use to hold  your fat out of the way is called a “pudgette”.  This struck me as appropriate and extremely funny, so I started to snicker a little bit over that, though I tried to stifle it, because a) this is serious shit, and b) I wasn’t supposed to move while the mold was hardening around me.

One test scan, some more readjustment, and then the final initial scan.  Then it was time for the tattoos.

They tattoo you so they aim the radiation beams at the exact same spots every time.  It hurts like a tattoo, but just for a second or two each time.  I’d like to say I’m covered in little daisies or four leaf clovers, but it’s just a lot of tiny lines no one would really notice.

My radiation oncologist has to leave for that part.  I think it breaks her heart to see her patients cry out in pain, and knowing that she has ordered it done to them.  Some people find the tattoo process very painful, even if they already have tattoos of their own choosing.  But I had Randall and Alisha with me, my two techs, and it was over pretty quickly.  Then they had to photograph my tattoos, with Randall making jokes about the photographs going on Alisha’s Facebook page, so I pretty much forgot everything about being scared, and started thinking about how I would soon be going home, where I could research how to build a bed for morel mushrooms.