2013 LOVE

Bear with me, I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing here at 11:28 pm.  I can tell you I just spilled my saltwater mixture while gargling with it.  How thrilling and stupid and current. 

I finished radiation yesterday.  I had 15 treatments on the table at Hahnemann, with this netted helmet thing.  Over time the helmet didn't fit any longer and they were shoving it on me, asking if I could handle it.  My head looks like a giant balloon about to separate from Earth.  It's round, kind of purple, and looks nothing like my head.  My head, which is now completely bald, probably permanently, and covered with weird spots.  I can't say this cancer thing is improving so much.  My mouth is so sore I can't taste much of anything, but I keep wanting to eat.  It's so unenjoyable.  But I keep thinking Chinese food will be incredible. 

Riding to Hahnemann five days a week was interesting.  I couldn't stop doing things.  Every single day, I felt like I had to make some sort of stop in one direction or the other.  In the three weeks I had radiation, Jonah's bedroom went from bright yellow to green, white, and Phillies red with a Citizens Bank feel (I hope).  I baked three different kinds of cookies, a couple appetizers, and made a ginormous vat of chicken soup for my sinus infection.  I've made cornbread twice from scratch.  I ran out of gas for the first time.  I had my "last" visit at group therapy, where I cried my eyes out to the psychiatrist and ended up having a second LAST visit at group therapy, where my 18-year-old friend said he thinks he personally would love having me as a mom and doesn't understand why my own kid hates me so much. 

She's making me so crazy, who needs brain cancer.  I can't make sense of her, so I just keep running back and forth in her life making a bigger mess.  I try really hard to stay out of her mess, I do, it just doesn't work.  I love her, so I make an ass out of myself everyday.  It doesn't help that I AM sort of crazy, that I see things, literally, that aren't there and have to make my mind make sense of it.  I lose the right side or pages flip repeatedly, and I miss reading.  I haven't even tried to read a book in two months.  But as for her, is she so unreasonable?  She's nice to other people, and she's got that very nice boy who rides his bike here from Jippip.  And she eventually did get in the college apps, and the stuff she's asking for isn't bad, like the music department Ohio trip and a high school yearbook.  I think if she wasn't trying to smother me, literally, or if she didn't wish me dead on a daily basis we might not be in bad shape. 

I think the key right now is that there's no way I'm making sense.  Just read this.  There's no sense and I'm not making any come out of the blue, that's for sure.  So clearly the cancer and Allison are still in my brain.  The radiation is supposed to continue to help for like two more months, though.  Then Allison turns 18.  How do I make any sense of that?  Do you think my brain will somehow take over and protect me like it used to do? 

I'd really like to live to 2014.  I'd never even imagined such a year occurring before, but if I don't make it, I won't see any of my kids graduate from high school.  It's not just 2014, it's 2015 when Jason graduates, and 2021 when Jonah dons the gray gown.  So I have to figure out how to get healthy.  I've made a couple New Years' resolutions, in fact:  I'm going to get  rid of this sinus infection, even though it means taking two antibiotics at once.  I'm going to call Dr. Miller in the morning and do this.  I'm going to call the Y tomorrow and get the free cancer membership Jill looked up for me.  Then I can swim for three months and I also get a personalized class or something sometimes, and the whole family can go.  I have so much muscle weakness from the radiation (and steroids, according to Dr. K), I can barely carry a gallon of milk into the house from the car.  In November it was nothing but fun to walk four miles outside, now I struggle to leave bed.  I'm going to finish my lovely cherry sours and then avoid sugar forevermore.  I should stop eating chocolate chip cookies, too.  Hmm, I might start this resolution next week.  But I will start next week, that's the trick.  I do have my next appointment with Dr. Fox, so I will soon have my bone shot and my chemo and my next abdominal CT.  I guess that's not a resolution, because it's not like there's a choice.