Today is the first day of the rest of your life, and all that razzmatazz
I had my last scheduled cancer treatment yesterday. It was an all-day affair internal radiation brachytherapy occasion.…
Sleep by Christina Bothwell (part of Conjuring the Spirit World at PEM)
The second of this week, in fact. I won't regale you again with the gruesome details of what's involved. Went spiffingly though and I was actually able to leave before 3, which was nice. I also rang a bell. it’s a thing when you finish your cancer treatment (usually chemo). As part of the weirdness of the whole experience there was a big group of nurses and other workers all gathered round with bells when I came out of the bathroom. Don’t think I’ll add that to my repertoire of regular dramatic entrances, but once was nice.
Radiation machine thing at Beth Israel Hospital
Somehow, despite having woken up at 4.30 to get to the hospital by 6, I wasn’t terribly tired when I got home and managed to go out in the evening to a preview of the PEM’s new Conjuring the Spirit World exhibit. They really quite outdid themselves with this… it’s very good, and much more extensive than I was expecting. And, well, unusual. Wonderfully ‘niche’. I gather it will travel after its run here in Salem, so do catch it if you can. I’ll definitely be back for repeat viewings during its tenure.
Lots of interesting locals in attendance as well (this event was for “influencers”, don’t as how I got an invite!) and I ended up going out for dinner with some fellow indie entrepreneurs women of great charm at the cozy Nathaniel’s in the Hawthorne Hotel. Not folks I knew terribly well but it was so nice to sit down with civilized people in a civilized place and have some good conversations and food and drink. Highly recommend, would do again!
Wandered back home around 9 and waited for Wm to get home — he’d actually gone back into Somerville to see music, in yet a second example of superhuman having-woken-up-at-4.30 strength. I was doing research and watching YT videos about software (gearing up to get back into Scrivener for my book project) and puttering. Wm went to bed around 11.30 and it wasn’t until about 2am that I finally day looked at my treatment notes from earlier that day and discovered that they had, in fact, given me steroids along with all my fentanyl and synthetic morphine and all the nice pain relief — hence the ridiculous energy. Well! I managed an hour or two of sleep in between fits of wanting to jump up and do crafts at 4.30 in the morning, and am up again early. Expecting to crash at some point. Though hopefully more along the lines of strategic napping followed by caffeine consumption, as I do have stuff I need to get done today. And am going to a movie/discussion event tonight for which I would like to be conscious.
I have stuff to get done today because, somewhere in my brain it seemed like an excellent idea to plan to vend at a music festival craft show tomorrow rather then rest on my resting laurels post finishing treatment. It’s the Moon over Salem festival, put on by Moon Booking and features a gazillion bands all over town, as well as vendors in Ye Olde Town Hall (that’s where I’ll be). It’s actually a benefit to help teach the youth how to rock — put on indie rock shows, etc. Cool, right?
Hopefully everything I varnished in the basement the day before yesterday is ready to go. I have all kinds of new products for this event, including a new series of illustrations I did of animals in stripey tights. I have to figure out everything I’m bringing and the set up soon… might need some strategic caffeine for that! I just have a small space, must try not go nuts. Must also remember to go pick stuff up from the screen printer.
Perhaps Sunday I will rest. I mean, if this weekend is like last, I will have to. I was zonked. And that’s the thing, it’s supposed to take at least several weeks to recover from the exhausting and other effects of the 5 internal radiation sessions/surgery things I’ve just gone through (and the chemo and external radiation). I have to keep remembering that I might not be up for everything, anything, even. Not easy to get one’s over-ambitious head around.
And of course, it blends in with this whole strange place I’m in where my job has been to go to cancer treatments all summer. Since early June. It’s been what I do. So, now what do I do? It’s the first of what’s next. With luck the first day of a whole new, non-cancerous chapter. Though I won’t really know more about that for a few months.
I have plans, for my work, but there are a lot of unknowns. I’m reformulating how I make a living, starting now. Well, starting to gear up now… I won’t know if I’m 100% until I get there, I guess. There is a lot of uncertainty and experimentation on the docket. But I maintain that dealing with that kind of stuff is part of being an older, more self-actualized Annie, so I guess I will be putting it to the test.
I was going to go into some of said plans here, but I think I’ll hold off. Still brewing, percolating. I probably need to make some diagrams.
I don’t think I was very much of a “victim-y” patient. More matter-of-fact, get-it-done, chin-up. Stubborn about resting. And I was thinking how I was able to become very physical non-self conscious as a a highly practical protective mechanism (people, I think, get stressed just thinking about all the invasive stuff I had to get done, but I really just didn’t even think about it or fret…). Nonetheless it is a mind switch to be not an active patient now. Go back to whatever a more private ownership of my physical body looks like, and my time and certain decisions which were obviated for some months there. I’m not totally intimidated, but it’s different. I feel different too, though, maybe capable of being more decisive. Definitely appreciating the the more simplified structures and systems I’ve been carving out all summer out of necessity and having time to do so.
So, yes, the first day of something. Watch this space.
[logistical note: I’ve switched this annielog, as you see, over to Substack so that one can subscribe to it or read it online, rather than me doing weird things with facebook and a randome wordpress blog. Don’t feel you have to subscribe, especially since the content will be changing pretty diametrically over coming months and weeks, but if you’d like to, it’s here. Also, it’s still best to contact me via email if as I’m not very consistant with social media. Thx!]