Wednesday, May 10, 2023

I went off to my appointment today all on my own – and I managed just fine. It is a quick trip and there are more comfortable places for Pat to sit than in the waiting room at the Cancer Clinic. I was there early but only had time to read a page and a half of my book before they called me in. My appointment tomorrow is in the afternoon so it will be interesting to see if they fall behind later in the day.

I was a bit flustered when I got to the treatment room. You have to strip from the waist up and I always remove my glasses and my mask. I was already on the treatment table when I realized I still had my glasses on. I asked if they could take them and they did – there is no way I want to see clearly what those machines, buzzes and beeps are doing. As I settled down I then realized I had forgotten to take off my mask – no way I wanted to be trying to hold my breath with a mask on. Once I got settled the treatment was quick.

I asked particularly about how much radiation I was getting. I get one dose from the top, one from the bottom of the table (although I don’t know how that works) and two doses on each side. There are two x-rays at the beginning that tell them whether or not I’m in the right position – that is what the tattoos were for.

My treat for the day was a trip down the hill to the Book Warehouse. Neither Pat nor I wanted anything and the store didn’t interest me much. The only thing I saw was the last book by Harper Lee but I’ll order that from the library or Libby (where I download books). We hadn’t had a very long walk so we crossed to the sunny side of the street and walked another block, then down another block and found a really nice grocery store – Whole Foods. We did a quick trip around the store, stopped at the bakery and picked up a couple of muffins.

When we got back “home” we sat outside on a bench for a bit. My stamina is pretty good on the flat sections but I really struggle with the hills (and we had two to climb back up).

I had a good long nap this afternoon and when Pat texted me that the Toronto game was starting I decided to stay where I was. I’ll probably join him later for the Calgary game.