Dawn Brocco's Life & Design Blog

Another Fana installment coming soon - hopefully this afternoon.

In the meantime...
I had my radiation dry run today. I begin treatments on Monday.

And I have another tattoo. On my chest, in clear sight - eesh. The other 3 - on stomach and each side, at least are hidden by clothing.

So, looks like, for the rest of my life, I need to wear a necklace to hide the black dot on my chest, a scarf around my neck to hide the red, sunken area from the first biopsy, and a bag over my head to hide the alligator marks!

Just in case anyone thought I might have been a bit too harsh in my judgment of that horrid mesh radiation mask, made to fit our individual faces, I hereby state with no equivocation - This Thing Bites.

The masochist that thought this one up should be made to shovel dog poo the rest of his life.

Click, click, click as they tighten your face to a hard table over a hard neck piece, head tilted back as far as it will go, turning your face into an alligator for hours afterwards (I ain't joking!), crushing your lower teeth hard into your upper teeth. If you don't have TMJ before rad treatments, you might, afterwards!

One of the techs was doing the tightening, and after the last click, I said, Jeez. And she responded, Yeah, that's the one they don't like. As if I wasn't there.

I think they should all have to go through the motions, including their own face mask, to see what it's like.

The only good thing about this new experience is that they actually came up with a late morning schedule which hubby and I can manage, so I won't have to rely on strangers taking me and bringing me home, looking like an alien, and having to make small talk.

The lady that brought me last time was great, a nice lady, but a slow driver, (I kept wanting to put my right foot down, and I don't even drive!) and we talked all the way there and back - too much talking for me!

under my nose
I've done yet more googling for edema answers and have come up with B6 and Horse Chestnut.

Now I've been taking both all along. The B6 as part of a B-complex, as it's not good to take individual B's by themselves.

And the Horse Chestnut I've taken for years, for my veins. It helps keep my veins from popping out of my fingers, when I move or lift something heavy.

But I didn't know that the B's and HC *can* work on edema, at slightly higher doses. So, I'm trying it, fingers crossed.

Back to pattern and photo work for me. And printing a small order for a shop. Dr. Zhivago is on. It's overcast and cool out today - the perfect day for a sad, epic tale of love and life. (Correction - make that WAS just overcast. It's now raining *again* - about the 5th or 6th time today already.)