January 30th — I said I didn’t want permanent tattoos so I get multi-colored Xs and dots all over my chest each day. I suspect some of these would be there even with the radiation tattoos since the techs mark the fields so they don’t get “hot spots” or double doses of radiation on overlapping fields on my body. Since I can’t look down when the techs are drawing on me each day, I ask, “what color are the dots today?” I have pink, red, green and blue for the past four days. A positive note is that I get that yummy high marker smell when they are drawing on me. You can also see my chest portacatheter or “port” where the chemo is infused into my body above my left breast. I’m a Frankenstein with my port and colored marks. Sigh. Enjoy the pics!

January 29th — Happy Birthday Mom!

Radiation is still awful and today my shoulders and arms began aching terribly during the procedure. I don’t know if it was the positioning or the fact that the techs had to take extra x-rays today or just the cumulative effect of five days’ worth of arm stretching. I counted the actual radioactive zaps and I get 13. Some of them are with the machine in the same position so I don’t know if that counts as a different field or not. Since the breath holds are no longer than 30 seconds each time, maybe I’m supposed to get a full minute’s dose of radiation on a few fields and the techs break it down into two different zaps so I can catch my breath. Doesn’t really matter. I’m already turning slightly pink as if I have a slight sunburn so am busily applying my salves several times a day. Thank God for the weekend when I get a break. I chatted some more with the woman who gets radiation after me who said she’s anal retentive and always shows up extra early for her appointment. She’s had breast cancer three times and this time it has metastacized to her bones. She said matter-of-factly that this time the cancer will probably kill her, but she’s made her peace with that since we all live day to day, not knowing when our number is up. Maybe something else will get her before the cancer does. She has three grown sons and five grandchildren, with the oldest being 11 and the youngest being 18 months old. I had some interesting emotions. Was I envious of this woman with metastacized breast cancer because she had grown children and knew her grandchildren? I told her I wanted 16 years to get my youngest out of college and every year after that was a gift. Actually, isn’t every day a gift? Do we live it as such? Do I? It was a bit surreal having a that conversation about cancer and death. Neither one of us cried during that conversation, and I think that’s what struck me the most. How casually cancer patients can discuss their own mortality.

January 28th — For some reason, radiation wasn’t as grueling today. I saw my radiation oncologist who was kind and compassionate and understood my anxiety. I still haven’t made friends with the scary machine, but my uncle gave me permission to spit at the machine as it whirls around me. That comment brought a smile to my face so I didn’t cry all the way to the oncology building today. I told some folks I would relate a funny thing that happened yesterday while waiting for my turn under the radiation machine if I got some of my sense of humor back. There were four women (including me) waiting for the machine yesterday. I was trying to figure out the schedule. One woman had a 9:10 appointment, I was at 9:15 and another woman said she had a 9:30 appointment. Then, the fourth woman said, “I have a 9:45 appointment, but I’m anal.” I was a bit taken aback by the comment, but thought I reveal everything about my breast cancer, so maybe I would be just as open about another type of cancer. Then she added, “…so I show up early for everything.” Oh, she meant a different kind of anal.

January 28th — I hate radiation. Two hours and two minutes until my next appointment.

January 27th — I hate radiation. Mentally, it’s worse than the chemo. I cried all the way to radiation after dropping Daniel at preschool and all the way home. Then, I made homemade pasta dough and ravioli with preschoolers. What a strange world I live in. The radiation experience pushes all my buttons the wrong way. Perhaps if I were an engineer, I would find the mechanics of the cancer treatment interesting. I think it’s scary. If I were an introvert, I might find the solitude calming. I’m just lonely. My head knows that this treatment is not as bad as the chemo but my heart hates every single thing about it. With chemo, at least I was drugged up and surrounded by people. With radiation, I’m immobilized in a surgical gown alone in a windowless room with a door like a bank vault unable to even speak to the techs because that would move my carefully positioned body while a big scary machine whirs around me and fills the air with burning dust smells like when you first turn on a space heater. Forgive the run-on sentence. I’ll keep it simple. Subject, verb, object. I hate radiation.

January 26th — Day Two and I’m toying with the idea of accepting my radiation with gratitude. Thanksgiving that there is one more line of therapy to prevent this illness from claiming my life. Right now, it’s still a reminder of my life-threatening illness, an inconvenience, and a scary solitary experience. The gratitude is coming. I can feel it. Maybe tomorrow. Right now, I’m covered in three colors of markers on my chest. I have little dot-to-dot lines showing the radiation fields to be irradiated on my body. Today the techs took more x-rays to make sure my breath holds were consistent. Then they told me to continue to lie perfectly still, naked on the table from the waist up with my arms above my head motionless in my preformed body mold. It’s a lesson in vulnerability. I’m not even allowed to move to help position my body on the table. The techs do it all, adjusting and marking my body for the beams. At one point, I had little post-it sticky notes with arrows pointing to different areas on my body. I’m sure they were not post-it sticky notes but it seemed like it. I couldn’t move my head to look at them and since my throat is exposed to the beams, my head is tilted up and away from the action on my chest. The radiation machine whirs and clicks as it moves around me and the disembodied tech’s voice from outside the radiation room tells me to when to breathe. The door to the radiation room is like a bank vault in thickness and when the techs leave, it’s just the big machine in a windowless room and me. It’s an isolating experience. Someday I’ll make friends with the big machine since we spend so much time together in such an intimate setting. Maybe tomorrow.

January 25th — I don’t like my life right now. Even with Xanax, I’m pretty unhappy. I’m generally upbeat, so I suspect this malaise will pass, but I’m allowing myself to feel sorry for myself today. I had cancer after all at a fairly young age and have 37 more days of radiation ahead of me. I have blue marker dots and Xs all over my chest and abdomen (to mark my held breaths during radiation). Of course, the parts of my life that don’t involve cancer treatment are pretty wonderful — I just took a fun weekend ski trip with my adorable husband, I have two children who are funny and loving and bright, I have interesting and caring friends and a new thriving business. But right now, all I see is the cancer treatment looming large on my life horizon. How can one aspect of my life eclipse these other parts? Snap out of it, Amy. Perhaps it’s because the radiation oncologists like my tumors less than my medical oncologist did. That’s not exactly phrased right, because none of these docs like my cancer. It’s just my regular oncologist talks to me about the hormones and chemicals and drugs affecting my particular cancer while the radiation docs talk about the physical location and properties of my cancer. I’m discovering that those are two different things. To my medical oncologist, the triple positive breast cancer tumors have a wide variety of treatments to prevent it from returning. The well-tested trifecta of adromyacin, cyclotoxin and taxol (ACT), the magic wonder drug Herceptin, the 10 years of hormone-binding pills like Tamoxifen. The radiation oncologists are more concerned because they worry about the location of my tumors and my lymph system and trajectory angles and hitting my lungs and avoiding my heart with the nuclear beams. It’s downright scary. On a funny note, the cotton hospital gown I wore to undergo my radiation treatment went into a used gown laundry bin that wasn’t just marked with the sign for medical waste. It had the funky nuclear atom sign on it. So, do my hospital gowns get buried in some mountain in Nevada along with spent plutonium waste from Three Mile Island?

January 24th — Well, we’re back in 60 degree Austin. It’s nice to be home and hug the kids, but I miss the mountain! In looking at the photos from the ski trip, I realized what my Aunt and Uncle said about my ski photos is true. When you’re wearing your hat, helmet or other cold-weather gear, no one can see if you have hair or not. I should have been skiing for the past seven months! No one would have known I was bald.

January 23rd — Well, losing chest muscle strength due to mastectomy sure affects skiing. The motion to snap the ski boots on is lost for me, but as Greg pointed out, I never really fastened my own ski boots anyway once I started skiing with Greg! Poling to the ski lift on flat surface is never a fun part of skiing but it was extremely apparent on the first day that I would be much slower due to my pec muscle weakness. By the next day, I just learned how to glide into the narrow lift entrances as far as possible before stopping and having to pole. I only ran into one person using that advanced skier technique, and since it was Greg, who said, “well, hello there!” and neither one of us fell down, it worked for me. I consider the ski trip a complete success. Greg and I skied greens and blues and made it down one blue-black run without injury. (Tomahawk, Vagabond, High Noon, Tower, Sunnyside, Heavenly Daze, Lightning, Norther) In fact, we probably skied more than one blue-black or black run because several times we took the shortest route to the lift we wanted, not looking at the guide and just making it down the steep hill. The runs under the lifts always look easier from the lift than when skiing it, and they are almost always blues or blacks. I never fell getting off a lift nor did I take out any fellow skiers or boarders getting off a lift, which is probably a first for me. Greg skis much more aggressively and faster than I do, but he patiently skied behind me on all runs or waited for me halfway down since I took more rest stops than he did. Neither one of us broke anything or took any hard falls, although we both did fall a few times. No true yard sales, where poles, gloves, skis go flying and have to be gathered up, put back on, all while standing on a steep incline. All my ski lesson training came back to me — I automatically snapped on my downhill ski first and dug it into the snow before putting on my second ski. I stopped downhill of Greg when he was already stopped, in case I fell and took him out as I fell. I took off ski poles and properly looked over my shoulder when getting on the lifts. And I learned an important skiing lesson I had never known before: skiing is great post-mastectomy exercise. Do you think I can get my health insurance to pay for the ski trip?

January 22nd — If God intended Sara to live in a mansion with crystal floors and a swimming pool, God intended me to be a ski bunny. On the plane, I asked what time it was and Greg told me, “10:20, Mountain Time.” Even hearing those words gave me goose bumps. I haven’t been on skis in three years and was in considerably better aerobic shape with more muscle tone then. So, those first few runs on the skis were pretty shaky. We stayed on the long green runs (Swinger, Giggle Gulch, YooHoo) through the trees at the base of the mountain instead of trying to reach the summit where the harder ones are. After a while, I found myself not thinking through each turn. I just enjoyed the sunshine, the speed, the beautiful mountain views. The mountain was practically empty so Greg and I had most of the runs to ourselves. Isn’t everything a metaphor for life? I realized that in pushing myself to ski Vogue, a blue run that Greg and I used to enjoy, but today seemed unusually steep when I balanced myself at the top of the cliff looking down. In skiing, you lean forward to prevent yourself from falling down. It’s a move that is completely counter-intuitive when you’re staring down a steep incline. I just kicked off to ski Vogue without letting fear overtake me. The faster I ski, the better I ski, especially when I’m pushing myself slightly over my comfort level. I found myself applying the same rules of “everything I learned about life, I learned in Kindergarten” to the mountain. Stay in control, but don’t ski too cautiously. Approach everything with a balance of control and challenge. Trust yourself. Don’t let fear make you miss the fun. Make nice on the ski lift with your fellow skiers and boarders. Mind your manners when trails merge or a 14-year-old snowboarder cuts you off. Allow yourself the joy of childhood in sliding down a snowy mountain. The only thing marring the fun of this weekend is the thought that radiation on Monday follows Sunday. On my Facebook page, a friend from college French class made a suggestive comment about the true meaning of “apres ski.” I replied, “I didn’t know “apres ski” meant radiation. I must have missed that lesson.”

Amy & Greg about to hit the slopes

Ski Bunny!