Last one!

Yup, the last radiation treatment is tomorrow..........If I can survive the night and MAKE it to tomorrow so I can get the treatment and be done, life will be wonderful.

So far, it seems its going to be another night of racing to the bathroom every 10-15 minutes. I've been seeing a pattern develop over the last few weeks, where the massive intestinal upset starts a little bit sooner after chemo each week. I've already taken 4 Imodium, trying to get it to stop so I can get some sleep, but no such luck at this point. I have a husband, two dogs and two cats snuggled up here in bed, all but one of them snoring--I shit you not--and I will probably not sleep at all unless that Imodium finally kicks in. That just isn't fair!

I just keep telling myself that this is it, the last day I have to set an alarm, even though it's not; I still have chemo on Tuesday. For some reason that doesn't bother me at all. I'm going to take all my extra hats in, along with thank-you goodies for the nurses and radiation techs and make merry on Tuesday, with the happy knowledge that as soon as the chemo is done, I can go HOME.

See, the catch to chemo so far is that it has to be four hours from the time the chemo starts going in until radiation can be done, meaning big time gaps between. The chemo infusion runs over an hour's time, so that still leaves three hours of killing time. Make sense? So, this time, I won't have to have radiation afterward, so no sitting around killing time. I don't actually mind chemo or radiation too much; getting it is totally no biggie-- it's the after-effects that are killing me!

<------Poor Pookie....his tummy is mad too.

Finding out that some of the side effects can still come on months and months after you're done with treatment is what really got me. Scout was telling me that he and Megan went to Hawaii to celebrate her finishing treatment, some time after she finished chemo, but that they'd really overestimated how quickly she'd be recovered from it. He said they left the hotel room maybe once on the trip because she was so sick. I'm trying to use that as my cautionary tale, something to keep in mind when I find myself frustrated at the passive, slow resting and recovering.

I am very, very glad that tomorrow is it for the radiation. It's funny, because it was chemo I was scared of at the beginning, and it's the radiation that's done the most damage to me. Surprise, surprise.

I think Mom is right on several things. I think I'm going to have a very, very hard time staying still enough to finish the passive "recovery" phase of this. I think I need to teach myself to sleep half the day several days out of the week. I think I am too tired to even think, much less feel anything like relief in a real way. I can't feel much of anything, actually, except tired

That's been one of my biggest problems throughout this whole mess... I'm so busy being active, as Mom said, treating the disease, that I haven't got time or either mental or physical energy left to process any of it on an emotional level. I suspect it'll just hit me one of these days out of nowhere, like a ton of bricks, and then I'll be in trouble. Hopefully not just yet...I need a few days sleep so I can build up enough strength to cope with THAT itself. I haven't felt creativea t all, so no writing, no journaling it out or anything,but I think it's about time I start working on that, chemo-brain or no chemo-brain. Old Yeller just doesn't do anything for me.

Hell, there are a dozen things I need to be doing for myself that I'm not, because I'm always trying to use that precious little free time to take care of kids, pets, etc,. Maybe that will be tomorrow's goal-- Sit down and make lists of what I need to do for me. Lists are my savior.

Well, I think my insides are going to cooperate enough that I can at least get some sleep. I should take advantage of the break in the storm, so to speak. Between the dogs and the cats I have about a square foot of bed real estate to myself, but at least there's only one snorer at the moment. My big grey pussycat is snuggled up next to me, which he doesn't do often, so I should take advantage of the situation and try to get some rest. Cross your fingers for me.