Dark green, shiny, smooth
Poblano chilies today
Roasting in oven

Still tired sometimes
Two years past diagnosis
Naps for me again

Good night, sleep tight, and
Even if those bedbugs bite,
Turn the other cheek.

It occurs to me that this blog is in need of a little reorganization. I can’t find past posts easily and I want to include some new links…. so for the next few days, deconstruction, derangement and reconstruction!

I’m indebted to tape. It has seen me through breast cancer treatment, and now it’s helping me organize my move.

Obviously, tape is used to hold bandages onto the skin of the patient, to close wounds and so on. Tape held my picc line in place, it helped me pull out hair when chemo took effect, it told the radiation oncologists how to position and where to zap me, it held my bandages in place. Now I’m using it to close and label boxes. Tape surely is a wondrous thing.

Back in January, a PICC line was installed in one of the large veins of my right arm. A piece of stretchy purple catheter used to deliver chemotherapy into my bloodstream without trashing my veins. At the end of the catheter was a valve of sorts, and various blood removal and delivery devices could easily be installed. Well, the PICC is held in place with a bandage, and covered in a broad piece of waterproof, transparent tape. Magic. No stitches or anything. And that tape holds the PICC in place and protects it so I could take a shower. Hygiene can be difficult for patients.

And then, about two weeks after my first chemo, my hair started to fall out. I’d had it trimmed to about an inch (2 cm) all around, and was told by the hairdresser to rub my scalp and stimulate the hair to make it fall out. I found a roll of packing tape lying around and proceeded to put small pieces on my head, and pull them off, removing the hair with the tape. Very satisfying and effective. Soon I was quite bald.

But, all good things come to an end. My hair grew back, chemo ended and the pic line came out. I thought I would be free of tape. But no….another surprise awaited me. Most people that I knew with radiation had a few dots tattooed on them. Not me, however. My radiation oncology service used felt tip markers (like sharpies or magic markers, but not quite permanent), and covered those marker lines with…. you guessed it, waterproof tape. There were a lot of them. My chest looked like something that Miro painted. I came to appreciate the tape, as it was fairly easy to align me and aim the radiation source. But since it was August, and warm, the tape curled, fell off, and since I could only take a very gentle shower, more hygiene challenges.

At the end of radiation, I had a lot of burns, like really bad sunburn, and I got this very special bandage for burn wounds. The bandage is plastic on the side that touches the skin, so that it doesn’t get stuck in weepy wounds. And of course, the bandage had to be held in place with tape.

Now of course, I’m done with my treatment, and done with the medical uses of tape. I feel a little lost. Fortunately, the practical matter of moving will occupy me for the rest of the year. I have to pack a lot of boxes. And each box is closed with – tape. I have a tape dispenser – tape gun, whatever. And then, I hit on the somewhat bright idea to label the boxes with colored tape. So I have 6 colors of duck tape, each color corresponds to a room, and voila – i have plenty of things to do with tape till the end of the year.

Next year I’ll be peeling the tape off the boxes and by then, I figure that I’ll have had enough of it. On to a new obsession, hopefully something as practical as – tape.

The last few radiation treatments delivered right to the tumor site have given me a bit of a burn. Like a blistering sunburn. Looks very angry there. Made me think of a game… angry boob, where various flying boobs crush and destroy cancer cells. Yes, I know about Angry Birds. Am fond of the game.

So anyway, I have a sore and angry boob. But it’s getting better, just sort of icky now.

After my last radiation treatment, I went into the bathroom and ripped off all of the tape that marked my targets and positions. I went home and had a nice long, lavender scented bath. Ahhhh. And I’m enjoying my daily showers/baths with various different soaps. I’m sort of liking the hair too.

But it’s been a busy week. In the past week I have seen my anti-cancer nutritionist, had my final radiation, saw my oncologist and started Arimidex, and continued the search for a new place to live. Today my butt is dragging.

The nutritionist was cool. Interesting stuff… Cancer cells feed off sugar, don’t seem to use fat or protein. And estrogen hangs out in fat cells, so it’s a good idea to reduce some of those. Sweet tooth and an estrogen tooth. And, exercise is important. So my general plan is to eat low carb, no sugar if I can help it, and exercise more. Also to drink water… I gained a bit of weight – steroid swelling and increased appetite, but that seems to be going away. The low carb thing is pretty easy, I like salads and protein. So we’ll see. I am not suggesting this for anyone else. It’s what I’ve decided to do for me.

Today I bought new walking shoes. Bitching red. The great thing about Switzerland is that you can buy red shoes, which I love.

Rads were fine, just an angry red boob here, but the tape is all gone! And my angry boob is nowhere as red as my new shoes.

Arimidex seems ok so far. Basically, I’ve decided that since I made it through chemo and rads relatively well, I will be ok on Arimidex. Maybe I can’t control all my side effects, but I think a positive attitude helps. And, feeling empowered by doing something has served me well so far.

It’s a little disconcerting to look up Arimidex and find out that body builders have used it. Basically it stops the production of estrogen in your body, helpful to body builders and women with hormone dependent cancers. Strange bedfellows.

Otherwise, I hope I won’t have to take up shaving. I do have to be monitored for bone loss, and I might have mood swings and get all shrively (dryness). I’m tired too, but it’s been a long week.

More soon…