Like bubbles floating to the surface

more feelings are coming up, largely in the form of irritation at the small insults of daily life and time spent waiting:  for test results,  for appointments to be scheduled,  for post-surgery swelling and pain to subside,  for iv port installation, for chemotherapy to start,  for my hair to fall out... A good friend assured me that it was fine to call her and talk when I was feeling really angry.  But I'm not angry because I have cancer (question:  if a cancer has been removed from the body, yet one is undergoing treatment for cancer, does one still have cancer?  answer: Yes! for as long as rebel cells may remain. This is war!).  Who would I be angry with?  A plethora of environmental pollutants?  Me, for smoking for years?   My grandmother, whose rogue genes I share?   On the other hand, I'm not looking at my cancer as a gift, although having the disease has brought surprising gifts that I'm grateful for.   So if I seem to be under expressing anger or grief, it's because I'm not experiencing those feelings right now.  Mostly I just live from day to day, which is a fine way to live in my book.  I look at my calendar and see what's scheduled for today and I deal with whatever it is.   Lately it's been good stuff: spending time with friends,  renewing old friendships, writing and receiving lovely long e-mails from friends,  and receiving gifts from friends.  And by gifts I mean the tangible stuff you can hold in your hand:  Edmo's delightful ceramic red devil (for me a symbol of the chemo drug, adriamycin, known as the "red devil."),  flowers, cds, and fabulous food.  So far no pink stuff, thank you very much!


Last week I had a CT scan, a brain MRI, a bone scan, and an echocardiogram (basically a sonogram of the heart).  None of those things were painful. Hooray!   And luckily for me, I find the world of medicine pretty fascinating so I'm never bored, although I'm sure these tech folks wish I'd stop asking questions!  And have I mentioned how nice these people are?  Well they are.  Super nice.


I was supposed to have a chemo port installed (http://www.ehow.com/how-does_5633327_chemo-port-inserted_.html) last week or today, but the surgery people dropped the ball. My breast surgeon won't install a chest port, but she will install an arm port (I use my hands far too much for an arm port.  It would drive me nuts.), so we had to find another surgeon.  It's a boring story.  Tomorrow, my first chemo treatment will be with an iv, which will probably be fine, but I definitely don't want to do that every time because I don't want endless needle sticks.  I'll get to endure plenty of those for all that blood work!  


I'll try to report later in the week on the aftereffects of chemotherapy.  Oh, I almost forgot!  My friend, Lauren is giving me a snazzy, super short haircut to make the transition to baldness a bit less dramatic.  I think that's happening later today.   Now it's time to get ready to go to my art group, where sadly, I have no art news to report because stupid cancer is taking all my time!