Countdown: 10!

After today (yesterday, as I write this), there are only nine treatments to go! Time to take stock of how I'm doing.

• The skin under the breast is tender, raw in places, and starting to itch. This is being eased, though not eliminated by wearing a thin, honeycomb gauze called Cuticerin, which I impregnate with a thinner version of Vaseline (called Aquaphor), and then cover, first with non-stick gauze pads, then with a large, thick pad, and then with a bra. It's rather messy and uncomfortable, but it does help.
• The skin under my arm is ready to secede from the Union, leave the planet, and join the Klingons. It's red, angry, sore, and getting worse by the minute, and there's very little to be done. Armpits naturally rub against stuff including the other side of themselves, and that's that. My various bulges and blobs don't help the situation. But people who have slender bodies and small breasts have their own issues with radiation, so I am not repining.
• The weariness is here, but I am dealing with it. Pushing through it as I can, and sleeping when I must. For example, on Christmas Eve I finished the last hat of my Great Hat Project (hats for all the Sunday School children, which is only eight, but the girl's hats were complicated), wrapped them all, went to church, made dinner, and then went over to my son's house to set up presents for the grandbaby. I was reeling with weariness through most of this, but it all got done.
• Hair is growing pretty fast now, and as far as I can tell is coming back exactly as it went. I can't tell if it is going to be more curly yet.

Wednesday, I will start the targeted portion of the treatment. The radiologist tells me that because the tumor was deep, nearly against the chest wall, they may still have to use a "field" approach to treatment, which means some continuing damage to already treated areas, but there's only eight days of it and at this point that's a mere bagatelle.

Countdown 9: More Stuff I Wish They'd Told Me