Alright. Here we go. Radiotherapy has begun and today wasn’t so bad. Honestly, sometimes I get so angry at being in a situation that requires chemo, surgery, radiotherapy, hormone therapy (etc), that it’s  easy to forget the benefits.  Chemotherapy coupled with hormone therapy dropped my chances of re-occurrence from 90% to 50%. Not the whole pizza, but not terrible. And radiotherapy will help ensure I don’t redevelop cancer in the site where the original tumour grew.

These are good things. So when I harp about the possibility of cancer down the line (because admittedly it’s a very low chance of secondary cancer resulting from treatment), it’s mostly defensive against the fact that I have cancer, and that I need to hurt my body to help it.

I’m angry – you know? Not all the time, but sometimes.

However, I nevertheless appreciate the smiling doctor who recollects skating the canal, and the nurses who chat about their day, and the patience with which my left breast is repeatedly checked. I appreciate it.  They are on my side.

So I forget that occasionally and get mad at every damn thing associated with cancer. From the ache in my side to the drip of a medication.

Zsolt pointed out to me today that having such a negative perspective isn’t helping, and he’s right. Sometimes I get angry, but that doesn’t mean I’m not appreciative (even when it doesn’t sound like it).  This crap is hard. I think the treatments could be better – but then, who doesn’t? That’s why bazillions of dollars of research are poured into the area. In twenty years, who knows what great advances will be made?

SO, that’s me eating my words. Filling.

Tomorrow (or sometime soon) I’ll write about radiotherapy – the actual session. It was certainly an experience, if only a brief one, and totally worth sharing.