The Fine Print

These Classics Illustrated used to be a guilty pleasure of mine in high school, and so when I saw one of my all time favorite novel, I couldn't resist snapping a cellphone pic. Doesn't Mr. Rochester look entertainingly alarmed by the flame sets by his looney tune wifey?

So on Friday, I found out the fine print on radiation aftereffects. (You knew there was a catch, right?) Besides sensitivity to sunlight in the irradiated area (I'm not a sunbather anyway), there may be a permanent darkeing of the skin (unknown how much, may be a little may be a lot), and a permanent hardening (once again, YMMV) since the cells have been altered (I forget exactly how, but they did explain -- basically, your body is not happy with you; oh well -- what else is new?)

I am very tired all of the time and constantly have the urge to nap... but also have problems falling asleep. (Why can't these side effects at least be consistent?!)

And as an added bonus (guys may want to avert their eyes) I seem to have been cursed with the curse for well over 2 weeks. When I asked the radiology team, they looked surprised and said I should speak to my gynecologist (i.e., this is not a normal side effect of radiation so they have no idea why it's happening).

I had not been particularly concerned since by this point I am used to my body acting oddly and expressing its displeasure in various ways. However, seeing a look of surprise on your radiation nurse's face is not reassuring, so I have made an appointment for later this week to see my gyn. Sigh. (Okay, guys: it's safe now for the Y-chromosome set.)

As an aside, the tea cosy on the right is for my engineer's mom's birthday this week. I was amused to find during our weekend visit that her teapot was ALSO orange, making for a truly blinding display of fall colors, eh?

The team that does the boost shots has a habit of running late, really late. One day last week they were running really, REALLY late (over 2 hours) so, like the airlines of yore, they gave me a meal voucher coupon and I went and bought dinner that night in the hospital cafeteria.


Other food porn: this gigantic slab of grilled salmon I had with sauteed spinach Saturday night, at Bitsy's in Jersey City (or as I jokingly refer to it, Cheers, because it's a neighborhood joint where they really DO know your names). Um, yes, I finished the entire slab. It was yummy.
My sweetie's mom made cioppino yesterday for dinner, an Italian seafood stew. Her mix included homemade crab stock, swordfish, shrimp, clams, and mussels, with leeks and tomatoes.

She sent me home with a container (guess what I'm having for dinner tonight? yippee!) since THIS was what she had left AFTER serving all 4 of us dinner last night.


Okay, lunch time is over, and tonight is MY LAST RADIATION TREATMENT. It will be late, since I'm not even schuled until 5:45 and they always run late... I bought a tub of assorted cookies yesterday, and will give them to the staff tonight :-)