well it hasn’t been easy, but i’ve made it through 3 weeks of getting my brain fried daily and i’m still mostly functional. i am grateful. and really really relieved it’s the weekend and i get 2 days off. i need it.

this was a rough week. overall, i’m feeling the fatigue building up. i’m generally ok in the mornings when i wake up and through my morning pet schedule but after treatment i’m pretty low energy. i haven’t had any evening pet sits since i started cuz i cleared my schedule for the first few weeks on purpose since i didn’t know what to expect, but i do have a few cat sits coming up that will require evening visits so i hope i can rally the energy to do those. will have to maybe drink more coffee or try some other things to give me a late-day boost of energy.

side effect rundown: i haven’t really been having any headaches lately, which is good. i still have the sense of pressure changes, and though i’ve not really ever spoken about it, i have this sensation that is somewhere between tinnitus and feeling/hearing/being aware of the blood rushing through my veins in my head. i’m really not sure what it is and again i link it to pressure inside my skull, which makes sense. it ebbs and flows, sometimes it’s not there at all and sometimes it is more prominent. it’s something that’s been with me since brain surgery but i’m so used to it that i don’t usually notice it, unless it’s really bad. and since starting radiation, it’s much more noticeable. so i do think it has something to do with the swelling of my brain or how the blood is flowing or maybe it’s really just my ears? i don’t know. but it’s not painful, just distracting and a little alarming from time to time.

the nausea has been really on and off. i first took the zofran to see how it would do with the nausea on sunday, as i was headed to friends’ to watch the saints game and knew there would be food and just wanted to be able to enjoy myself. it worked, and i did. (i will note that sundays are always the BEST i’m gonna feel since it’s been 2 days since a treatment.) i felt fine. monday i took it again to see if it made a difference with my treatments, and again, it did. it helped me not have as stressful a stomach during the treatment, which helped me relax and therefore not dread the 3-4 minutes i’m on the table, which generally, i do. i saw the doc that day and he remarked that i was yawning a lot, so i do think the zofran makes me drowsy. (also a known side effect.) i took it again on tuesday, and not sure what was different, but it didn’t do as good a job with the nausea that day. i was pretty useless after my treatment for the rest of the day. i felt pretty awful.

wednesday when i woke up i realized, uh oh, i’m having all kinds of stomach cramps and i’m SUPER constipated, not something i ever deal with unless i’m on opioids for pain. it is a known side effect of zofran but i guess i didn’t realize just how quickly it might give me problems. so wednesday was kind of miserable. i did not take the zofran and haven’t again cuz i just wanted to get back to normal, which thankfully, i am almost. so i’ve been without zofran or ibuprofen for a few days while i tried to regulate.

yesterday the treatment went fine, no problem with nausea but i was pretty wiped out for the remainder of the day after treatment. today the nausea returned and it was pretty bad all morning. walking helps and i learned a few acupressure points to press on to help with the nausea and i think it actually worked as i got through my treatment ok. they’d moved my appointment up to 1:15 instead of 2 today so i had to really hustle through my dog schedule to get home to change and get there on time.

the biggest excitement of my week was that i got a parking spot in the oncology lot EVERY SINGLE DAY this week so i haven’t had to power walk from the parking garage or street parking on the other side of tulane. it really makes a big difference in my mindset going in. i hope i continue to have good parking luck. it just makes the whole experience faster and easier and less stressful.

i keep struggling for pictures to go with these posts to break up all this verbal diarrhea from me. so please enjoy my daily check-in station where i have to scan the barcode on my patient card so the radiation techs know that i’m there. then i go sit in the women’s dressing room which is right next door to the radiation room until they come get me. (most radiation patients have to change into a hospital gown so they don’t have any metal on them but i just change at home into clothes that work cuz i fucking hate those hospital gowns.) i am often the only one in the dressing room, which is kinda nice. i’ve gotten in the habit of doing a quick little meditation in there while i’m waiting which helps calm me down. there are one or two other women who must have appointments right before me that i sometimes see but they are not brain patients. they are getting some other body part radiated that takes a longer setup and time on the table and they all change into gowns. the techs are always happy to see me cuz i’m easy, in and out fast and apparently don’t give them any trouble. they love that i’m a dog walker and cat person and ask me all kinds of questions about their pets. lol

so yeah. 3 weeks of this shit down, 3 more weeks to go. i wish i had other people who’ve had brain radiation to talk to about this experience cuz it’s weird as fuck. it’s hard having the words to describe the level of dread i have going in there every day, how i brace my body lying on the table under the mask counting my breaths when i hear that fucking tone that indicates the radiation is flowing. i don’t understand others who say they went through this and didn’t feel anything, that it was easy. cuz while it’s not pain per se, it is very much not a pleasant feeling and i definitely feel something. but i’m having very minor side effects in the grand scheme of things (i mean, some people have seizures and get burnt scalps or sores inside their throats/sinuses) and i haven’t lost any hair yet (though there’s still time for that one) and most importantly, i’m still able to work. i wish i had more energy to be doing artwork as my pet schedule is kinda slow at the moment and i’m barely able to pay my usual bills but i am staying afloat. and thanks to all of you i’ve been able to stay current with all the nickel and dime medical bills that have started to come in.

OH and big thanks to derrick, my sweet friend who i met when he was manager at the american can building and whose dog jazz i walk sometimes – he made me huge container of yummy chicken soup that i’ve been eating on all week. and my dear friend audra made me this insanely delicious couscous veggie thing (i don’t know if it has a name) that i’ve also been eating on. it’s way healthier than anything i’d make for myself and my body is definitely craving that. i haven’t asked for food because i’m still perfectly functional and can forage for myself but if you know me, you know i don’t really love to cook and feeding myself is a struggle on even a good day. so these gifts of healthy, delicious food are so very appreciated.

have a good weekend everyone. i’m off to binge watch “the diplomat.”