queerbychoice (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
queerbychoice) wrote2019-12-29 09:36 pm
queerbychoice) wrote2019-12-29 09:36 pm
Entry tags:
Christmas Loot
As I write this, Barry and I are in Santa Rosa for the week-long New Year's Party we've been attending every year for the last few years, at the same house of the same friends (who own multiple houses, though so do we at the moment) who hosted our wedding earlier this year. We are at our wedding venue, for the first time since our wedding. It is nice. We were the first guests to arrive, Friday afternoon, but a few more have shown up today. On Friday night Corey, the homeowner, took Barry and me to dinner at the local country club. Barry and I had hamburgers, and Barry also got a "Spanish coffee," which was alcoholic. For dessert, I had brown butter date cake (described as "warm caramelized apples, salted pecans, cinnamon tres leches sauce") and Barry had chocolate peppermint ice cream. The other guests mostly arrived on Saturday, but it's Sunday evening now and I've only played one board game with anyone other than Barry yet. I played Fog of Love (with Paranormal Romance expansion pack) with Barry, and I played And Then, We Held Hands, and I played Fuji Flush with Barry and three other people. And I played half of a PlayStation Star Trek-themed virtual reality game, Bridge Crew, but we had to stop in the middle because my arms grew twenty feet long and wouldn't bend in the right directions to push any of the buttons on my bridge console anymore and it turned out that this was because the batteries in my hand controllers were dying.
My last day of radiation was December 23. I had 21 days of it on my left breast this time, compared to 33 days on my right breast in 2014, but the total amount of radiation was the same each time, just divided among a different number of days. In 2014 I had it during March and April, so each day after work I drove to Sacramento for radiation and then got out of the cancer center while it was still light out, and I took the opportunity to go to all sorts of fun places (parks and such) after radiation, to make the many long drives to Sacramento feel more worthwhile. This time around, since I had radiation in November and December, it was always dark by the time I got out of radiation, which pretty well ruined the opportunity to go to any parks or outdoor locations. But Barry helpfully set up a game of Betrayal Legacy with three of his friends, so we played 14 installments of that until we finished the main storyline and then threw a party to celebrate the end of my radiation treatment.
Two days later, for Christmas, we and Barry's parents all went to my parents' house in one vehicle. We brought pies (pumpkin and apple) that Barry's parents bought, a half gallon of "waffle cone swirl" ice cream that Barry's parents bought, a risotto that Barry made, and some glazed carrots and onions that Barry made. Plus a chair from Barry's house because my parents were short a chair.
Here's what I received. First, the books:
And then the other stuff:
Around the day Barry and I arrived for this New Year's party, my irradiated skin started peeling off in sheets. This is more disconcerting with irradiated skin than it would be with a sunburn, because whereas sunburn damages skin from the top layer downward, radiation damages it primarily from the bottom layer upward - preventing new layers of skin from being created to replace the old layers. So when the top layer starts peeling off, there isn't necessarily much left underneath it. I haven't been actively bleeding or anything, but I've been stressed by the fear of doing so because there's so little left of my skin right now. Particularly in a rectangle down the middle of my chest, because it seems like the right-breast radiation I had in 2014 may have overshot its mark enough to damage the rightmost inch or so of my left breast to the point of rendering that inch of my skin much less resistant to the left-breast radiation I've just finished. That one-inch by six-inch rectangle looks and feels significantly worse than all the surrounding skin, and I've been worried about it.
And because I'm a rather extreme introvert and always find it somewhat stressful and draining to talk to a bunch of strangers at big parties, it turns out that the stress of radiation depletes my energy reserves to the point that I just cannot summon the necessary energy for talking to people other than Barry hardly at all at this party. I've been hiding out in our bedroom-away-from-home almost constantly.
However, cancer is once again banished, at least theoretically. Here's to no more cancer! And to getting my skin back.
My last day of radiation was December 23. I had 21 days of it on my left breast this time, compared to 33 days on my right breast in 2014, but the total amount of radiation was the same each time, just divided among a different number of days. In 2014 I had it during March and April, so each day after work I drove to Sacramento for radiation and then got out of the cancer center while it was still light out, and I took the opportunity to go to all sorts of fun places (parks and such) after radiation, to make the many long drives to Sacramento feel more worthwhile. This time around, since I had radiation in November and December, it was always dark by the time I got out of radiation, which pretty well ruined the opportunity to go to any parks or outdoor locations. But Barry helpfully set up a game of Betrayal Legacy with three of his friends, so we played 14 installments of that until we finished the main storyline and then threw a party to celebrate the end of my radiation treatment.
Two days later, for Christmas, we and Barry's parents all went to my parents' house in one vehicle. We brought pies (pumpkin and apple) that Barry's parents bought, a half gallon of "waffle cone swirl" ice cream that Barry's parents bought, a risotto that Barry made, and some glazed carrots and onions that Barry made. Plus a chair from Barry's house because my parents were short a chair.
Here's what I received. First, the books:
- Inheritance by Lan Samantha Chang (from my parents)
- Ordinary People by Judith Guest (from my brother)
- Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter (from my parents)
- Color Concrete Garden Projects by Nathan Smith and Michael Snyder (from my parents)
- Deviant Bodies: Critical Perspectives on Difference in Science and Popular Culture edited by Jennifer Terry and Jacqueline Urla (from my parents)
- Butterfly Burning by Yvonne Vera (from my parents)
- Maiden Voyage by Denton Welch (from Barry)
And then the other stuff:
- Tidy Tips (Layia platyglossa) seeds (from my parents)
- Germ Guardian 3 in 1 air cleaning system (from my parents)
- Ravensburger Escape Puzzle No. 82 473 1 (from Barry)
- Nintendo 2DS XL (from Barry)
- $30 in gift certificates for games for the Nintendo 2DS XL (from Barry)
- hot cocoa mix (from Barry's parents to both of us)
- $1,500 check (from Barry's parents to both of us)
Around the day Barry and I arrived for this New Year's party, my irradiated skin started peeling off in sheets. This is more disconcerting with irradiated skin than it would be with a sunburn, because whereas sunburn damages skin from the top layer downward, radiation damages it primarily from the bottom layer upward - preventing new layers of skin from being created to replace the old layers. So when the top layer starts peeling off, there isn't necessarily much left underneath it. I haven't been actively bleeding or anything, but I've been stressed by the fear of doing so because there's so little left of my skin right now. Particularly in a rectangle down the middle of my chest, because it seems like the right-breast radiation I had in 2014 may have overshot its mark enough to damage the rightmost inch or so of my left breast to the point of rendering that inch of my skin much less resistant to the left-breast radiation I've just finished. That one-inch by six-inch rectangle looks and feels significantly worse than all the surrounding skin, and I've been worried about it.
And because I'm a rather extreme introvert and always find it somewhat stressful and draining to talk to a bunch of strangers at big parties, it turns out that the stress of radiation depletes my energy reserves to the point that I just cannot summon the necessary energy for talking to people other than Barry hardly at all at this party. I've been hiding out in our bedroom-away-from-home almost constantly.
However, cancer is once again banished, at least theoretically. Here's to no more cancer! And to getting my skin back.