Journal of a Living Lady #91

 

Nancy White Kelly

 

My back side is all marked up with magic markers. I wouldn’t chance running naked in the woods just now. A deer hunter might think he had a big one in his scope.

 

There is a huge X on my lower back that an eight-year-old with a BB gun could hit from his second-story bedroom window. That X marks the spot the technicians will shoot with powerful invisible rays tomorrow and several more days thereafter.

 

I feel discouraged today. Cancer treatment seems ad infinitum and ad nauseum at times. To top it off, there is a three hour round trip to the nearest radiation center. That’s what I get for living in the mountains, but the trade-off is worth it.

 

The computer-driven machines at the cancer treatment center are impersonal. A steady stream of people of all ages and stages of cancer stream in and out of the isolated radiation room. The staff is cordial, but I feel like a prodded cow being forced into the cattle chute.  No options except bolting and running away like a soon-to-be altered bull. But I won’t kick over the traces. Not today.

                       

Mentally I am prepared. Just smoke me and be done with it. No big deal.  Actually it takes longer to undress and dress again than to be zapped. Hopefully the tumor will diminish and the pain will go away for a while.

 

Eventually this experience will become just another notch on this veteran cowgirl’s belt. Maybe I won’t succumb to metastasized cancer but of Mad Cow Disease instead.

 

+++++++++++++