I’m sitting here crying on a Saturday morning as I put together a reel about my experience going through radiation. Pulling those pictures out of the archives yesterday was more emotional than I realized it would be. It’s like they have been buried along with the memories that go with them.
I am glad that I pulled them back out. It gave me a chance to remember some things I had forgotten.
Like the mints that I took from the candy bowl every day.
The Little Rituals That Got Me Through Radiation
At the time I wasn’t eating much sugar because I was doing everything I could to starve this little devil that is the big “C”. I was eating my protein and hitting the gym as much as I could in between the fatigue and the nausea from treatment. But every day at the end of radiation, as I was walking out of the back area, there was a little candy bowl that had those super intense Lifesaver mints in it. I grabbed one every single day.
It became like a little ritual for me. Like a little gold star on the wall saying, “You did it!” as I walked out the door. It gave me a little boost that I needed. A feel-good moment in between the drudgery that was showing up to radiation every day for too many days in a row.
I remember there being a couple days in there where there weren’t any Lifesaver mints in the bowl as I was walking out and it felt pretty devastating. Like my little gold star had been ripped from the wall. There were other candies in there, but they just weren’t the same. I still grabbed one, don’t get me wrong. I’m not an absolute heathen. Candy is candy after all. And if the only sugar I was allowing myself at the time was from that little bowl on the counter at the radiation office, you bet your ass I was grabbing one. Even if it wasn’t exactly what I wanted. (My second choice was the sour apple Dum Dums btw.)
The Goofy Pictures I Sent Every Day
The other thing I was reminded of, pulling up all those pictures, was the goofy-faced pictures I would send Tim every day. That was another little ritual I had. Before I would change out of my regular clothes into the ugly gown, I would take a goofy photo for him. Or for me, I guess. It was my little way of having him with me at the appointments. He or my mom had been with me at all the other ones. These ones were so quick and so frequent that I didn’t really need someone to take off work with me every day to sit there for 15 minutes while I heldmy breath in a back room and got radiation.
If I could give myself one piece of advice during that time, it would be this though — once a week, take someone with you. The appointments seem so minute in comparison to everything else that you go through in cancer treatment, but they aren’t. One of the mistakes I made was thinking that I didn’t need anyone to be there with me through them. I went to all of them by myself except the last one and looking back on it now, I think that was an error. I think that I found myself feeling alone at the end of treatment because I had made myself alone at the end of treatment.
Cancer treatment taught me that people will come as close as you allow them to be. I did my best to let people in. Some days that was easier than others. And maybe now I am looking back on those days using the lens of energy and time that I have now, but I think that it is important and could have made a difference in the way that I was feeling if I had someone by my side even for a small number of those appointments. Do with that what you will.
Looking back on those goofy pictures I can see the ruse. I was doing my best to convince myself and Tim that I was feeling good. And some days were better than others. But as the days went on I can see the fatigue start to set in.
Life Kept Happening During Cancer Treatment
I also saw how much life was still carrying on as I was going through treatment. Radiation was happening during the holidays. In the middle of it we went to Seattle with the boys and spent the weekend with Tim’s family for Thanksgiving. In early December I had a long weekend and went to San Francisco with Tim’s sisters, Mom, and Aunts. Immediately after treatment we flew to Arizona for Christmas.
I remember being pushed through the airport in a wheelchair on both of those trips because I didn’t have the energy to walk to my gates. Talk about a trip. Me, a fitness professional that has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, trains people in weightlifting, used to run half marathons, teaches yoga, lives for movement, can’t walk more than 100 yards without needing to sit down because she is exhausted. That’s a total mindfuck that you can’t prepare yourself for.
I’m not gonna lie though, we had some fun in the airport. Tim parked me facing a wall while he went to the bathroom. Completely on purpose with me in on the joke. It was just about the funniest bit. Had me dying in the airport thinking about all these people walking by thinking, “What a fucking asshole. Parking this poor lady up against the wall where she can’t see anything.” Hysterical. We had a good laugh when he came out of the bathroom.
Looking Back at Radiation Treatment
When I was looking through those pictures earlier I was pretty sad if I’m honest. What a heartbreakingly dark time of my life. But getting to think through all the things we did to get through those hard moments, I’m really grateful for this life I have and the people I chose to surround myself with. Those laughs will stay with me forever.