Now don't move...

So today, I learned that despite driving the same route every day, the express bus driver can be more oblivious than a newbie passenger like me: he drove four blocks past my stop until one of the other passengers (who also wanted to get off) yelled, "Hey!" Me, I was wondering if there was some hidden rule about skipping stops that I didn't know about.

Once I finally trotted back to the hospital (and did I mention that we were already late, due to traffic?), I experienced a new aspect of my treatment: today they took films of me (for about 2 minutes) to make sure that I am am actually staying still -- and let me tell you, that doesn't sound so difficult until someone informs you that you CAN'T move. Suddenly, that's when you become aware of an itch on the side of your nose, or your back... but you CAN'T MOVE.

Despite the fact that they are essentially bathing my entire upper left torso in radiation, they actually are aligning me within a millimeter of where I'm supposed to be on the table, wherever that is -- it's all vaguely mysterious to me except for the laser level they use to align me. It's sort of like major league baseball pitchers: they all have specific little twitches to set themselves up before a pitch, but a layperson can make no sense of their gyrations.

Other aspects of my routine: every Friday I meet with my radiation oncologist and her team, so it's a desperate race between the express bus and the 5 o'clock cutoff time. Every Wednesday, they have maintenance on the machines, so my appointment is moved up earlier (so I can feel even more guilty about taking additional time off from work -- as it is, I leave at 4pm).

As you can imagine, all this waiting around results in lots of reading, preferably of trashy novels. So far, I've gulped down something I haven't read in years, a historical romance which I bought for $0.50 from the library (and which reminded me why I don't read these things anymore), a bunch of mysteries (looking forward to yet another in the Gaslight series which my friend Sam snagged for me from his office, Murder on Marble Row), and just finished Dexter in the Dark tonight (which I found a bit disappointing, but am hoping Jeff Lindsay redeems himself with the new Dexter novel, Dexter by Design.

By the way, for those of you watch the Showtime series, several things are different in the book: unlike the show, in the books, Sgt. Doakes is still alive -- sort of -- while Lt. LaGuerta is dead. Whoops. And can I just tell you that finding out that the actors who play siblings on the show are married to each other in real life is just a bit... weird?! I know, I know -- they're just pretending to be siblings but...

Anyway, food captions for tonight: the top photo is a turkey avocado sandwich with roasted peppers and a sharp cheese (I forget which) that I had at Le Pain Quotidien last week, accompanied by limeade mojito (virgin), both specials of the day. The photo on the right shows tofu fries (twice fried) with dipping sauces which my friend Margaret ordered when we were shopping during my visit to Seattle -- which just goes to prove: you can make anything unhealthy if you try. Heh.

Okay, time to go slather some Eucerin on my zapped bits -- recommended Rx from MSKCC: twice a day, and hopefully I won't get too badly "sunburned" -- I can but try, right?