I have had four radiation treatments now. Seems to be going well. If you would like to know more about the rads experience (or how by accident I peed on my own leg after a struggle with camel toe) read my last post, entitled Meet Trilogy. So who would have thunk that the bane of my existence, after sailing through chemo and with four short weeks of rads to go, would be my right thumb.

That’s right, I have a thumb infection. It appears to be under the nail, which was damaged by Taxol, the chemo drug I was on for the second half of my treatments. How the infection got under there I have no idea, as there is no obvious cut or other point of ingress. But man is it obvious the thing is infected. Here, see for yourself (caution, don’t eat while reading this — oops sorry too late):

No I did not alter that image. That would be my right thumb. It looks, my friend Susan pointed out, like a toe. A big toe. Naaaaaaaaaasty. It feels awesome too, let me tell ya.

The whole thing started just about two weeks ago when I was awakened in the middle of the night with excruciating pain under my right thumb nail. It was dark so I didn’t look at my thumb. I just figured it was the last of the effects of the Taxol rearing their ugly heads after  treatment. Pain under the nails is something I experienced frequently during chemo, but not on this level. It woke me up again about four times that night. And in the morning I took a gander and that sucker was red and swollen and clearly infected.

So I called my GP and (after seeing me) he prescribed Augmentin. Didn’t touch the infection. Frustrated and a little concerned I asked my oncologist when I next saw him, which was about a week later. He spoke to the folks in the chemo treatment suite and we decided to try another antibiotic: Flucloxacillin. After a day or so the pain was better and I thought it was working but then the discolouration began to spread and the pain to return so I decided it wasn’t working and asked my radiation oncologist (four days later) what to do. We decided I would go to the dermatologist. So I did.

The derm took me off the second antibiotic, ordered an urgent ultrasound, and put me on Clindamycin, a broad-spectrum antibiotic I had never been on before.

I asked him if they would have to amputate (I was sort of joking). He said, deadpan, “I don’t know.” Good Lord, man. That isn’t funny! He said “well, anything is possible.” Although true, this is not a nice thing to say to a cancer patient who didn’t really think it was possible she would get breast cancer at the tender age of 39 and who can now well imagine the news that the top of the thumb will just have to go.

The ultrasound revealed thickened flesh but no abscess (no accumulation of fluid) behind the nail and the bone appeared to be normal. All good things. So I went home and took my first clindamycin and then another before bedtime and went to sleep. It didn’t look better in the morning nor did it the day after that, which was yesterday. I painted my nails red for the 4th of July party (even though it was July 1st — details) at the American Ambassador’s residence. That made it look somewhat better. The thumb became “Big Red.” I faithfully took my meds at the allotted hours that day and this morning I woke up and it was significantly… worse. Shit.

After fumbling through getting the kids ready for camp (it is hard to make sandwiches without using your thumb) I called the dermatologist. He was away until Friday. Super. Then I had to skedaddle off to radiation so after my treatment I asked them about it and the doctor there took a look. She ran through the good things: no redness, no systemic symptoms (I feel well and don’t have a fever, etc.) and said that antibiotics take time and I should give it at least 72 hours and that if the thumb still wasn’t improving they could admit me to the hospital for intravenous antibiotics. Delightful.

“Worst case scenario,” she said, “you lose the finger.” “WHAT?” I cried? “Oh sorry, the fingernail.” That is definitely a distinction with a difference. Next time spare me the heart attack.

It doesn’t help that at the moment I am reading Ian McEwan’s Solar. There is a scene toward the beginning in which the protagonist travels to the North Pole to study global warming. After a number of mishaps involving cracked goggles, subzero temperatures and failure to empty his bladder anytime in recent history, this dude stops his snowmobile to take a piss and his unit freezes to his zipper. He has to pour booze from a flask he happens to be carrying on the thing to get it unstuck and then as he mounts his companion’s snowmobile he experiences a terrible pain and then feels something small, hard and cold drop down his pants and settle by his knee.

Naturally he believes that his penis has broken off following the peeing incident. We later learn that this is not the case, but I felt for the guy. I really did. I looked down at my thumb and shook my head.

Then tonight my husband (the one who hasn’t had a day off in over a month) came home early so I could go to the movies with Susan. We saw Friends with Kids. It was cute, albeit predictable.

I walked to the theatre and on the way I spotted the broken off tip of a banana lying sadly on the pavement. Hmm. It looked just like my thumb above the joint, except more yellow. I didn’t like it.

I was just about to settle down and read my older daughter a chapter in Sky Island when the phone rang with a “withheld” number. It was my radiation oncologist. She had contacted an infectious disease doctor who is a friend of hers about my case. This doctor said that one can develop a nasty and persistent infection of the nail bed and that I should be on a combination of strong antibiotics to deal with it and also of course be seen. I said I was already on clindamycin. That was one of them. The other, it turns out, was Ciprofloxacin a/k/a Cipro (yeah, the stuff you take if there’s an anthrax scare). “Really? Together?” I asked. “I happen to have some in my stash of meds from chemo.” It was true. I have meds out the wazoo from all of my chemo and Cipro was always on hand in case I developed an infection. And it was the right dose and everything. So now I am on BOTH.

We’ll see how that works out. And I will see this doc on Wednesday. Meanwhile, I told my radiation oncologist I thought it was awfully funny that I had breezed through chemo only to be felled by an infected thumb of all things. “Yes,” she agreed, “it is your Achilles.. ‘thumb'” we said in unison. Giggle, snort.

I’m going to Wimbledon tomorrow. Of course it will probably rain all day but whatever. I will still have fun. If I can’t watch any tennis I will eat strawberries and cream and take meds every five minutes. Then Wednesday I get to find out more about how to kill this stupid infection if it has the nerve to look this disgusting for another day.

Good thing I am not a hand model.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from rads treatment but after three rounds I have some thoughts. In some ways it’s exactly what I imagined it would be but in others it is quite different. It conjures all sorts of images and feelings. I’ll share some of them with you.

For one thing I never expected to feel like I was in a James Bond movie. You know the part where, as Dr. Evil so aptly put it in Austin Powers (the first one not one of the lame sequels), the villain places Bond and his flavour du jour in “an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death?” That’s sort of what it’s like when they arrange me on this enormous and rather intimidating machine and then proceed to fasten my torso to the table. This keeps things in position but it isn’t like I couldn’t just pull off the tape and get the fuck outta there if I wanted to.

Of course it isn’t a perfect parallel seeing as the folks doing the arranging and taping are nice to me and are actually trying to save my life. Never mind. It is, however, pretty freaky when they leave the room and the weird noises start, first a high-pitched sound like out of a sci-fi movie, then the whirring and clicking as the head of the machine slowly glides into position and prepares to fire, then silence… and finally a flat buzz at the photon beam is delivered, first via one angle and then after the head repositions via the opposing angle.

When that happens I try to visualise something fierce à la Chicks I Dig Vol. 1, like one of my super heroines shooting any naaaasty cancer cells that might have stayed behind with laser beam eyes. Or maybe a cancer-hating dragon scorching the heckety heck out of any stragglers with its fiery breath.

You don’t feel it. And it’s fast. So different in so many ways from chemo, which took hours and from which I often experienced side effects as the poison was flowing into my veins. Radiation is not without risk (duh) or side effects but it (so far) feels less patently sinister.

A few minutes later they come through the doors and announce “you’re done. See you tomorrow.” It’s like having a job but a really short one. And I don’t get paid. But it is five days a week. Okay I guess it isn’t really like having a job, unless you consider killing it a job. It has been quite a job, as a matter of fact. And I think I’m pretty good at this job. But I hope to change careers soon. There are so many of us doing this job. It just ain’t right.

My machine is called Trilogy. Trilogy is large but I do not fear her. She is a sort of gentle giant. She is there to help me. With her flat, round head and deliberate movements she conjures for me a great tree sloth with special powers.

When I arrive at the radiation centre I descend to Basement 3. I am called to treatment and remove my clothing from the waist up and slip on a johnny leaving it open in the back. I enter the radiation chamber where Trilogy awaits. I slip the robe off and lie on a table with my arms over my head. The staff gently position my body so that laser beams align perfectly with my three tattoos, one between my breasts and one on either side of my rib cage on my sides. Once they are satisfied that all is perfect they place, for the first twelve treatments anyhow, a flexible bolus over the right side of my chest. My final thirteen will not include this.

They tape the bolus to me and the table. After this they leave the room and the alarm sounds (that weird high-pitched wavy alien sound) telling them to get the f*&% out of the room. Then the other noises begin and the party starts.

Then in a flash I get dressed again and am outta there. Ready to do it all again the next day. Once home I apply some Calendula- (marigold) based cream to the treated area in the hopes that it will minimise the sunburn effect and promote healing. The cream is called “My Girls” and I slather it right on my girls and my chest and under arm.

Yesterday my radiation oncologist showed me pictures of my scans and planning, which depicted the angles of the beams and which areas would be treated. It was unsettling to see the top of my right lung in the line of fire even though she had specifically told me about it. Apparently the scarring to that lung will be minimal and I won’t notice the effects of it. But still. On a positive note, turns out the portion of the left breast that is getting a dose is pretty minimal so at least for now I have stopped hand-wringing about that wrinkle.

After that thrilling technical description I thought you might like to be entertained. But if you are easily grossed out then stop reading right now. I’m not kidding.

This morning I decided to go to treatment in workout attire so that I could get one in right after it was over. I pulled on my Lulu Lemon extra longs and took the tube to Warren Street and then hopped on a random bus (the 27?) — there are loads of them on Marylebone Road and they get me 20 seconds away from the door of the treatment centre which is ideal when I am running late having had to draw on eyebrows or some such thing.

I visited the powder room upon arrival and tried to adjust my gym pants (pants in American means trousers not underwear, thank you) to eliminate that terrible thing that happens to women when the seam sits a certain way. Yes, you guessed it. Camel toe. Unacceptable.

I don’t know why but my LL’s tend to give me that sometimes and I do NOT like that look at all. Then I decided I had to pee, having made those seam adjustments in vain. I squatted (I have long legs and I don’t sit on public toilets, people). Somehow being, shall we say, more bare in certain areas can apparently cause some control issues. The long and short of it is that I peed on my own leg. When I sensed this I stopped mid-stream and looked down at the back of my Lulu Lemons. Yup. I peed on my own pants too. Super.

So in the space of two minutes I discovered that (a) I had camel toe and (b) I peed on myself. But that didn’t rain on my parade (so to speak). Nope. I was in a good mood. I just took some towels and water and soap and washed off those pants and redid my seam adjustment and moseyed on into treatment. Nobody the wiser.

I know that was TMI (too much information, come on, older set. Keep up!). But I just had to tell about it. It was a killer start to my morning.

Just so you know, below is a simulation. I have my robe on because although I love ya I don’t want to share that much. We took this right before my treatment began. You can see I am still smiling from the bathroom incident five minutes prior. Please be a dear and don’t post this pic on “Am I Hot or Not,” if that site even still exists, okay?  G’night.

Here I am.  Sitting with my teeny weeny laptop and gearing up for radiation. My first treatment is in about an hour. It’s late today — just for today.  Every other day will be at about 10:00 am.

I was feeling a little nervous about it but then I reminded myself that we are doing this for a good reason. To kill any little fuckers that dare to hang out in there. Any little fuckers that the surgery and the chemo didn’t already kill. So as long as I keep that in mind I will be all right.

I am not wearing a crazy outfit today. But I do have on my Current/Elliott pink cropped leopard-print jeans. And a good deal of eye make-up. And my hot pink lace bra. That oughtta do for my first rads ensemble. I have to take half of it off anyway… so practicality is a slight issue. Just slight though. Maybe one of these days I will play a practical joke on the rads team and put some tassels on my newbs and get on the table like that.

They are English though or at least living in England so they might not know what to make of all that. Although they do seem to do fancy dress (that’s costume for you Americans) at the slightest provocation. Like you might see a whole gaggle of grown men wearing Superman outfits and running a 6K. I am not kidding. My theory is that the English school system causes people to feel repressed and then things sort of boil over occasionally and get out of control once people enter adulthood. But I don’t have any scientific proof of that.

I will let you all know how it goes. I plan to tube it today. I finished the Hunger Games trilogy so I need to bring a new book with me. May delve into Solar by McEwan. Anyone read it yet?

Well I’ll be going now. I need to deal with this onion breath I have going on from the couscous, red onion, cilantro, tomato, olive and feta salad I made for lunch before I leave. Someone outside might light a match and we’d all go up.

Ciao for now.

So following my deflation last Thursday I submitted to a second scan on Friday.

Actually my first order of business on Fri morning was to visit a dermatologist for a second opinion on whether I really needed to rush into biopsying the shingles scar on my scalp or that mole (which has always been there along with its many buddies) on my forearm. I was suffering from angst and a fair dose of doubt about the biopsies, and not because I feared the results but because I could not understand why either was necessary at all, never mind urgent.

I am a sensible person. And a good patient. But I am not a robot. And when I feel uneasy about a recommendation, be it from the butcher or a doctor, I have to listen to myself. I agitate — sometimes even obsess — I question and then I reevaluate.

The second derm took a look at my shingles scar and my mole and announced that there was “nothing sinister” about either area and that he saw no reason to do the biopsies. So I canceled the damn things. We can always do later if we feel warranted. But I see no reason to subject myself to unnecessary surgical procedures.

Particularly at present when my latest post-chemo symptom is a humdinger of a thumb infection under my totally disgusting, yellow, brown, white and red thumb nail, which hurts like a bitch and makes me think surgery to the right arm in the near future might be ill-advised. Hmmm?

Anyway back to the scan. My arms fell asleep from holding them for too long above my head but other than that it was fine. My radiation oncologist called that evening and told me that we are good to go but that I will still get a little rads to the left “breast” — it will skim the surface of my skin. I questioned her about this and she addressed my concerns. Then I thanked her and hung up.

Of course about three minutes after I had let her go I realised that I was completely freaked out, not okay at all and had a host of other questions and concerns. So naturally I obsessed about the fucking thing throughout the entire weekend. I hadn’t suffered that much angst since after I got my pathology results in the hospital, which revealed that my situation was somewhat more complicated than anticipated. And that was back in February.

It’s interesting; even throughout four months of chemo I wasn’t particularly stressed out. It was at times hard to take, but I got through it and I went to bed almost every night with a quiet mind. Because I had a plan and I was sticking to the plan. I had a routine. This made me feel in control. I recognise that.

What threw me so last Friday and over the weekend? Why did I freak out? Because after eight sessions of biweekly chemotherapy, I was expecting a short hiatus and then to plunge right into the radiation. Day after day, getting it done, killing it. Please sir, may I have another? So when the plan changed and there was unexpected shit I had to contend with, I didn’t like it. And when I couldn’t immediately discuss that shit with the person in charge of my plan, to get to the bottom of it, I really didn’t like it. Because I felt out of control and helpless.

I was derailed; my confidence shaken.

At the same time, my husband was called away on a business trip to Zürich. He hasn’t had a single day off work for weeks now. Not a single day. He’s been faithfully plodding along, working weekends and into the nights, all the while having to deal with his own concerns, anxiety and just burnt-out-ness about my situation. He left last night (Sunday).

The girls and I had Sunday roast at our wonderful friends’ house on Sunday — one of those friends happens to be Bill’s partner (like, at work, not his gay lover, people). Poor Bill couldn’t come. He had to work. So after a delicious and excellent afternoon the girls and I hopped back on the Overground and hightailed it back to Belsize Park so that we could get home in time to spend some QT with Dad-o.

The girls ran up to see him while I puttered in the kitchen with some cauliflower. I was down there alone and that’s when the floodgates opened. I started to bawl. And then of course my nose started to run like a faucet because I don’t have any nose hairs left to hold anything in there. (Don’t worry none got on the cauliflower — promise.) If you want pathetic imagine a crying bald chick struggling to cut cauliflower into florets with the help of a dysfunctional thumb while a string of clear fluid hangs from her nose. Not cool. And definitely not hot.

I felt a little bit better that night because I decided to catch up on Glee episodes and nothing makes a girl temporarily forget her troubles like back episodes of show choir performances and teenage angst. Beats forty-year-old cancer-induced angst anytime.

This morning I woke up and held it together while I made the kids breakfast and sent them off to camp for the day. After the bus drove off I had to face the fact that it was Monday morning and thus time to try and reach my radiation oncologist so I could ask her the twenty things I wrote down over the weekend that almost caused me to chew my own arm off.

I called. I e-mailed. One of the secretaries let me know that the message had been passed along and my doc would call me. I showered (with the phone in the bathroom of course) and got dressed and was putting on my eyes when my friend Gohar showed up with a delicious lunch for me. I burst into tears when I answered the door and saw a friend. She listened while I spewed my anxieties.

Then when Agnieszka showed up half an hour later I burst into tears again. She listened as well and gave me a supportive hug. Then I devoured that yummy lunch (I am rarely too upset to eat).

My plastic surgeon called. He made me feel better. He always makes me feel better even though his primary job is to make me look better. I started to feel a little perkier after that conversation.

After my call I made myself a cup of tea (I have about six cups a day, seriously. This is England, people), my radiation oncologist called. I ran upstairs and whipped out the little notebook where I write down all my medical questions. And answers. I asked the first one. I liked the answer. Check. I ran through the rest. My doctor fielded each question and was patient and honest. I felt the old me bubbling to the surface again. The fragile, teary, angst-ridden me receding.

And as quick as a flash, I am restored, calm, ready for action. My weekend obsession bender is over. Back to business. Honey badger’s back in town.

I am a strong person and I can take a lot, have taken a lot, thrown at me. Curve balls. But that doesn’t mean I don’t falter. Don’t cry. Don’t fall apart. Not often, but it happens. I also have an unfortunate tendency to obsess when I feel that things are unresolved. I know that I do this. I do not enjoy this personality trait. But that’s how I am. I have always been this way. I’ll work on it but I can’t promise I’ll win that battle.

Even as I obsessed I knew that I would start to feel better once I spoke to the doctor and she answered my questions, but this didn’t prevent me from being completely mental right up until the moment when she finally called me back.

Why do I do this? Why am I like this?

You know, it doesn’t matter. As Popeye said, I yam what I yam.

And that’s good enough for me.

Now onward with the fucking treatment plan. I have better things to do, for crying out loud.

Okay, people. I’ve been a good sport. Stiff upper lip and all that jazz. But I have to say I am feeling plenty tuckered out and PO’d today. Now I know that “pissed” means drunk for you UK types and that is not the kind of pissed I am talking about. I mean the good ole American “angry” pissed.

It’s great to be through with chemotherapy and all, but it really does suck that I now have to be subjected to more poking, more prodding, more cancer treatment. I’m kind of feeling done. And it dawned on me today, the morning after the telltale soreness and tenderness that always plagues me for a few days following my immune booster shot set in, that this Friday I have my CT scan and maybe even get tattooed for radiation. I am starting to feel like a science experiment.

Now you know I’ll soldier on because that is the honey badger way (and if you still don’t know what the Crazy, Nasty-Ass Honey Badger is, you have to look it up on YouTube yourself at this point). But I don’t have to like it. Sometimes a girl needs to vent.

I had about five people (well-meaning of course and there is nothing wrong with what they asked) inquire if I had any “exciting summer plans” now that school is ending (yipe –tomorrow). Um, yeah. I get to go have my skin radiated five days a week for five weeks. Oh goody. And I have to get myself there and get myself back.

I reassure myself: it won’t take very long — I’ll be in and out every day. It’s in a nice area. Yadda yadda yadda. But it still isn’t what I want to be doing. I’d like to be under a parasol sipping a prosecco, oblivious to the trials and tribulations of being a cancer patient. That isn’t a club I wanted to join. No one wants to. Too bad it has so damn many members. Of course I’ll take “patient” over “victim” or “casualty” any day…

Fear not. I won’t wallow for long. Tomorrow I’ll be up killing it again. But man, some good old-fashioned normal would go down really easy right now.