Radiation blows. Now, that's not true for everyone, many people I have talked to have breezed through it, especially after chemo. However, since I breezed through chemo, well, here I am. I'm not doing terribly, and actually the doctors are quite pleased when they see me every week, saying my skin is holding up considerably well for being so fair and for turning red so fast. I cannot even imagine what they see and frankly, I don't want to. Last week, one of the radiation techs, after telling me my skin looked pretty good for day 15, proceeded to tell me about all of different kinds of cancers they treat, and how some are just awful no matter what you do. I'll spare you the conversation, but I try to remember that when I am walking around with my chest hurting all day, trying to carry the baby, trying not to punch her when she slaps and scrapes me on the chest with her no-matter-how-often-I-cut-them-they-are-always-there nails... (kidding people, seriously). But you get the point. I try to keep it in mind that in the scheme of things, this treatment is nothing compared to what some people go through.
Which I have been thinking about a lot lately, always being appreciative of what you have because you can always find someone worse off - until you are the person perceived as worse off! On the last day of chemo, I was talking to my nurse, who had not done my chemo while I was pregnant, she only did the taxol. We were chatting about something and I said, well, yeah, remember I was pregnant when I started and she said oh that's right. Some of the patients would talk about you and say "Well, at least I don't have it as hard as she does." And I was shocked - I didn't want to be that person, I wasn't that person, I was the person who sailed through chemo, hardly any problems at all! I didn't want anyone feeling sorry for me, not one bit. So there you go, more conflicted feelings brought to you by the cancer channel. Stay tuned for the next episode.
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