radiation

Well first of all, I have a tattoo. well it is just three separate dots around where I will get radiatiion, but it was done the way a regular tattoo is done with ink and needles and all. Didn't hurt a bit so now i think I am ready for the big time. I am thinking a heart on my butt or a flower or something in a discrete area. Or maybe a tramp stamp. I feel I am at an appropriate age and stage in life for one of those.

I am modifying my feeling about male cancer doctors. Not because I think any of them read this and would sue me, because truth is a defense to libel, plus i didn't mention any names or for that mater, say anything bad about them. My radiation guy is good. He spent a lot of time, talking to me like i was stupid which i totally was. Also we bonded over having kids at NYU. I didn't tell him my ex is responsible for the vast majority of the money that is paid to them- I think he will give me a discount or waive the co-pay or something if he thinks i have to pay the tuition. And one of the radiation techs (a woman) had hair almost as short as mine and hers was intentional,not because of chemo, so that gave me the courage to go au naturel to work. Well, I mean without a wig or scarf or anything. I do not mean naked, which i am almost sure is against our dress code. Plus my boss is on vacation. She had "preferred" the wig as she thought the bald head might upset some of the psych patients. However, as my daughter said last week at the beach, I now look more like Sinead O'Connor than a cancer patient. And, my eyebrows and eye lashes are back. I can wear mascara! You do not know how wonderful this is. Really. Anyway, i am starting to like how I look again. For someone as vain as me, this is huge. You know for a while, i didn't really care how I looked- I should have noticed that, as a psych nurse, that was certainly the first sign of my falling into a deep depression. However, it was cured by the arrival of eye lashes. Didn't even have to increase the prozac.

I haven't started daily radiation. That will happen next week. It will be before work, with about an hour to kill after radiation and before work and guess what there is a little mall with some of my favorite stores in it right smack on the way from the radiation doctors to my work. A good omen if I ever heard one. By my favorite stores, I mean in real life, not my pretend life. In other words, TJ Maxx, not Gucci.

And by the way, my patients liked the bare head. They think it is a fashion statement, not a medical side-effect. So maybe i should shop at Gucci. Or at least hope that they have some really good Gucci knock-offs at TJ Maxx. I am so cool. PLUS, tattooed. Look for me on the cover of Cosmo next month.