Ode To A Tumor

Well, today the parking lot was brimming, unlike the day before when we were the only ones stupid enough to show up. The same couple was in the waiting room with us that has been there for a while now, and we were greeted with a bright hello from them. She is a breast cancer patient, and she was trying on some of the caps they have in a basket on the corner table. She went with the black and white zebra print. She said her hair was starting to come back (she is almost finished with her radiation treatments, and I assume she completed chemotherapy before that), but that it was coming in real gray. Mom said that was typical and told her that it would probably come in curly, too, but that once you cut it it would go back to being straight. I didn't know mom knew that. She's smarter than she lets on.

My therapist today is a young woman who also treated me back in 2007, so I am pretty comfortable with her. She's very sweet. The Mask was not tight today at all. I was back in the room on the left, which I prefer (because I'm used to it). I always expected that sooner or later I would stop feeling claustrophobic under The Mask, and it would not affect me like it did at the beginning, and I was right. It's all routine now. I take my deep breaths, get swallowed by The Mask, and do my best to relax for the fifteen or so minutes in that room. But, believe me there were days where I truly wondered if that would happen. I was kind of taken for a loop by the whole thing... never realizing I was claustrophobic at all and having those panic feelings for the first time. I'm much more comfortable being in control of things and not having irrational fears. Irrational things bother me, so I was not liking it at all.

So, now that I am over The Mask anxieties, I am dealing with what I was warned would happen, and that is irritated skin. The skin on my neck is starting to feel like a bad sunburn. It's not quite a bad sunburn, but it is definitely tender to the touch and a bit itchy. I'm using lotion and anti-itch powder on it.

The previous times that I was treated for this disease, I had tumors, but they were not visible to me and I could not feel them. This time is different. I can feel this tumor and it is a different experience than before. Being able to feel the tumor is a bit more daunting, if only because you can reach up and touch it and know for yourself if it's going away or not. The other times, I didn't really bother to even think about it. Well, the first tumor was removed with surgery, so that was different as well. The other tumor did shrink, from what the CT scans revealed. The reality of cancer sometimes doesn't register when the tumor isn't visible and you can't measure it with the touch of your fingertips. At least three times a day I'll touch it and estimate its size, and I wonder if it will always be there and I will simply have to live with it. I guess only time will tell, and even then, will it matter, really? I mean, doesn't everyone die from something whether you know about it in advance or not? You simply just have to live day to day.