cancer – day 192

There is a woman who is often coming out of the radiation center when I am going in. My first time there she was coming out and her face was a little spotty and she had a scarf on her head like a chemo patient, and I wondered if she was getting radiation on her face. I’ve seen her a few times since then, and when I saw her again this morning, I felt so bad. The radiation burn is a rectangle across her nose and cheeks now, and it’s purple-red and looks really painful. I remember cringing inside wondering if it’s going to get that bad with my radiation, and I had an awful moment of thinking that she’s lucky it’s on her face, so she doesn’t have clothing rubbing against the burn all the time.

I’m not burned bad at all yet, it’s just starting to get pink-ish with tiny little red blotches. Last week it was just itchy, though after today’s session it’s starting to feel more like a burn, mostly just where they put the bolus. I’m glad they’re not using the bolus every day, just every other day, to radiate that area more but try to conserve on how much they zap my skin. Overall it’s still not bad at all though, compared to my hands and feet.

It’s been dark and cloudy/rainy all day today and I can’t get warm for some reason. It’s crazy how short the days are all of a sudden. The gloomy weather doesn’t help though. Summer sure disappeared quickly.

I’ve been having trouble with my eyesight again today. It seemed god for quite a few days and I thought I was past this side effect, but today I’m struggling to see the computer screen again, and letters are all blurry. Darn it all, I’m ready to be done with all of this. How do people do chemo for six months or longer? I can’t even imagine.