RADIATION DAY THREE (HL)

 TGIF holds new meaning for me

Each Friday will be followed by

Two days in which

Our car does not

Back out from our garage

And head straight toward Mayo as

If on auto pilot

It’s not that radiation has been

A pain: however

The fact that I will remain

Unmasked over the weekend

Is a welcome reprieve from

Feeling all of my facial features

(My eyes, nose, mouth, chin

Throat and neck) attached firmly to

The radiation table, as my whole head is

Tightly encased within

A personalized, hardened mesh mask that

Prevents my moving (from

The neck upward) so much as

A millimeter (as though to protect

Everyone in the room from

H. L. whenever that

Evil character had need to be

Temporarily released from his cage—

Chomp!  Chomp!) 😱

Just kidding!

I don’t feel like Hannibal the cannibal

I do feel seriously squished within

This hardened head mask that

Attaches to the radiation table upon which

I lie, face up

Five days, each week

🙋🏻‍♀️🌈🍀Annie

A PLAYFUL SPIRIT IS MINE

 On Tuesday evening, Will, David and I enjoyed dinner with Andi and Michael on the patio of a favorite restaurant.  On Wednesday morning, David drove back to the west coast.  On Wednesday afternoon, I carried everyone’s loving wishes with me to my first radiation treatment, thinking that thoughts of family and friends would surely buoy my spirit, thus calling forth my smile to feel playful with well trained technicians whose expertise directs rays of radiation at this unwelcome supergirl tumor in my neck, which. hopefully, following fifteen treatments in all, will find itself zapped to kingdom come.

With positive focus secured, I’ve readied myself to accept radiation treatments as yet another way to extend my life  and hopefully, the ‘bad sunburn’, which may build up upon the skin of my neck, will not prove more painful than I’ve been led to believe.  As to Oral chemo, taken nightly, hopefully, it’s attacking cancer cells in my blood while daily radiation treatments zap the tumor in my neck (without sapping too much more of my energy.

As with all things—Time will tell.  With two radiation treatments tallied—So far, so good …

🍀🙋🏻‍♀️🍀 Annie

RICHARD III AND LADY ANNE

 I postponed Monday’s rehearsal with a classmate (via FaceTime) of an impassioned scene in which Richard III (a blackguard) dares to sweeps Lady Anne (whose husband he’s killed in battle) off her feet in his ploy to make her his own (though he declares within an aside to the audience that he will not keep her long).  Though a sweet tongued roguish rascal doth R prove to be, Lady Anne’s ultimate capitulation maketh no sense—unless Shakespeare had maketh frequent use of poetic license thus stooping to exacerbate R’s hunched back while hardening his villain’s heart.  I mean, questions exist as to whether Shakespeare made R ever so monstrous to curry favor with Queen Elizabeth I as a recent perusal of historical documentation suggests as being worthy of our serious consideration.  In any case

While texting my mutual amateur thespian, Chuck, of my need to postpone our FaceTime rehearsal till Tuesday, here is the message I chose to compose—

Several times a day, I hear myself telling Will—I couldn’t do this without your heart connected so lovingly with mine.  And the constant love of our family and friends continues to buoy both of our spirits, every day.  I maintain my balance by feeling truly grateful for daily blessings of which there are many.  And in that way do I adhere to a positively focused attitude based in peacefulness, day after day.  We’re deeply appreciative of my team at Mayo, as we feel my needs have been highly prioritized over these past three years.  And having had four surgeries and many rounds of chemo (which necessitated emergency hospitalizations and blood transfusions), my on-going need of astute medical care has been answered with such kind consistency as to be numbered amongst my blessings, as well.

Monday will be spent consciously clearing my head so as to face Wednesday’s first radiation treatment wearing an honest smile in appreciation of the role played by modern medical technology, which continues  to extend the length of my life, thus affording me additional time to enjoy with family and friendships, such as the one that’s developed between you and me.

And for reasons described above, I’ve postponed our rehearsal of one of Shakespeare’s impassioned ‘love/hate’ scenes until the sun doth rise on the morrow.

Until then, I bid thee adieu,

Lady Anne

Hey! I mean—Harken! So sayeth your friend, Annie—This similarity of names certainly adds to injecting my study of Shakespeare with a sense of timeless good old fashion fun 🙋🏻‍♀️😊🌈🍀

I TRUST MY MIND TO FEEL CALM

 I just woke up!

It’s past 11am!

And knowing that my first radiation treatment is, tomorrow, I’d not be surprised if while I was asleep, my brain has been working overtime to withhold anxiety from overwhelming my surface layer of calm.  Hopefully, my subconscious state of alarm (based in horror stories on the part of some of our radiated friends), will prove unfounded for me, and I’ll just feel more fatigued.

I plan to spend what little is left of this morning practicing my part as Lady Anne in Shakespeare’s RICHARD III, which will be fun as I watch myself grow less apt at tripping over Elizabethan word choices each time I recite my lines, again and again.  Then this afternoon, I’ll FaceTime with my classmate, Chuck (who played Desdemona to my Othello), and as he’ll play the part of Richard in our most current Zoomed student project (to be performed in early December), we’ll practice our lines, together.

We chose the scene in which R is wooing A after he’s killed her husband and father-in-law in battle.  As you can imagine, this is an emotion-driven scene, and thus, is great fun to capture for ourselves.  Gentle Ann feels driven to call R, (the blackguard), every despicable word that expresses her disgust until the end of the scene whence she capitulates and can be seen extending her arm to accept his ring.

And now, forsooth, I am away to practice my part in this tragedy in which—alas— a pair of cherub cheeked lads, swept into the tower, will have met with foul play at the hand of the dastardly rogue uncle they’d trusted to protect them from bodily harm.  Thus doth we see how one man’s lust for supreme power breeds evil—and sadly—tis no better throughout the world we inhabit, today. 

As to all of my friends, tis my hope that evil will never darken your doors, freeing your souls to enjoy a lifetime of very good days …

🙋🏻‍♀️ Lady Anne

(who most assuredly would not be so naive if a cruel minded knave, likened to RIII, came to woo me, today) 

https://www.alamy.com/richard-duke-of-gloucester-and-the-lady-anne-by-edwin-austin-abbey-1852-1911-oil-on-canvas-1896-an-illustration-of-richard-iii-by-william-shakespeare-image330956363.html?imageid=246BD046-A118-407A-AC3E-DBA3B3115F68&p=176541&pn=1&searchId=e9247cd02f7b690040317d8b2372294d&searchtype=0

BUNNY LOVE

 Here’s an example of fatigue—we’ve been home from the coast for two weeks, and I’ve just begun to consider unpacking.  Perhaps, tomorrow.  Or not … 

I was ordering something on Amazon when a funny bunny hat popped up on my screen, and as it was love at first sight, I knew without a doubt that I’d be the energizer bunny, this year, for Halloween.  Thank goodness this self inspired costume contains my steroid induced pudginess within my white furry exterior, because each time I look in a full length mirror, I can’t help but wonder who is this woman who is dressed in my clothing, and what has she done with my shoulder length hair?

Thank goodness—my funny bone has lots more energy for fun than is true of the rest of me.  And that’s a very good thing since the strength of my spirit’s smile is in training to last one second longer than my body’s very last breath.

Happy Halloween—yet again—because I just found this post forgotten in unpublished drafts …

With hopes that you enjoy the spirit sustaining simplicity of lots of good old fashioned fun with family and friends, all year round …

🙋🏻‍♀️🎃👻🧚‍♀️Annie

WHILE MY MIND REMAINS ASWIRL

Though my most recent difficult medical decision has been made with logic leading the way, my emotional reaction continues to erupt, feeling like an upstart, stirring up my thought processor too much to express myself in writing with the clarity, which thankfully was mine when we were summoned to meet with my medical team, who generously chose to reconvene on the spare of the moment, yesterday, at Mayo.  Though I’d not wanted to miss my Shakespeare class via zoom, my gratitude for my medical team’s personal involvement with my well being actually felt palpable.

Once my processor feels less swirly, I’ll outline how pros outweighed cons while my decision making process concerning surgical removal vs radiating my neck tumor came to depend upon common sense to resolve this inner conflict that ran interference with regaining peace of mind, which is not yet entirely mine.

Thank goodness, David is with us and a sleep over with Ravi is planned for tonight.  Along with Dr. Papa, we’re all eager to enjoy an evening filled with uncomplicated fun, which is just what my tightly wound mind is in need of to feel fully relaxed though radiation therapy lies directly ahead …

🙋🏻‍♀️😊Annie 

A SPIRITED STRUGGLE BETWEEN COURAGE AND FEAR

 When several days pass without my having published a new post that’s indicative of my thoughts concerning some aspect of life running far too deep to have composed my emotional reaction so as to be able to construct sentence structure that clearly reveals whatever feeling I’ve been currently suppressing deep within my mind.

For example, ever since my appointment on Tuesday with the oncology radiologist at Mayo, my mental struggle has been concerned with mustering the courage to overcome fear so as to make a decision based in logic in hopes of prolonging my life.

👩🏻Annie

PS   If you’ve come to know me then you already know which side of my spirit will ultimately win this debate that has stirred inner conflict to disrupt my peace of mind.

Oh!  One more thing—while feeling conflicted I’m also grateful for the fact that, over these past three days, nausea has not returned. And as you can imagine, my beleaguered mind considers that groomed sense of rebalance to be a welcome relief.