Going through two surgeries and six rounds of chemo in seven months required my hanging on through a swirl, looking out at a sometimes blurred world going by, dizzy, often nauseated and disoriented, precisely at a time when thinking clearly would probably be a good idea. Then the chemo ends, things stop swirling so fast, and smelling weird, and the hair starts growing back, altered, but still on my head.
So now that I'm done swirling, landed in the same place, I have possibly too much time to reflect on what the hell just happened. Getting from one appointment to the next was in many ways easier. I used to love Jed Bartlet in West Wing when he'd say to staff, "What's next?" but I console myself now that I don't have to answer anything except "radiation," the Step Three after surgery and chemo.
Radiation offers those bizarre moments unique to breast cancer treatment. I am having a new form of super high-tech radiation, with a Star Trek-like machine, and in case you think I'm exaggerating, it is called the VARIAN TrueBeam High Energy Linear Accelerator (THELA). I have a team of three highly trained technicians who make this thing work with admirable precision, including playing jazz on Pandora while I'm on the table. Mandy is an artist of alignment, and her two handsome assistants tug and shove me to her requests like "left hip 3cm right" with fervent devotion.
But the first day was slightly intimidating, and I walked into the vast room with the