No one knows why.

Anything.

Monday was day 13 out of 20 of my radiation treatments. Friends ask how I'm feeling, and I really don't have a brilliant answer. I'm not as tired as I thought I would be, yet I have no energy. That doesn't really make sense does it? Well hey, that kind of goes along with my whole theme about Dadaism doesn't it?

I'm all over the place. I'm too tired to walk up the stairs but I can't sleep at night. I'm messed up.

No one knows why.

I am an ironing board. Someone placed an iron on me so that they could prepare the linens for a fancy tea with the queen. The queen of malcontent. The iron is heated to cotton and placed down very precisely so that you can see the sharp outline where its heat scorches. The edges where radiation is "on" versus "off" are clearly demarcated - as clear as the borders drawn on a map. It's rather fascinating actually. My skin is a map. Apparently they can focus the x-rays very precisely, so sharply that their journey leaves a sharp shadow on the skin, although some of them supposedly scatter and bounce once they get inside your body and ricochet off in heart or lung or stomach or neck or brain directions. I try not to think about that too much.

My radiation is called external beam. Meaning simply that it is beamed through me from outside me. From a Godzilla sized metal toaster truck continent object. Welcome to the machine.

Sometimes cancer patients have little tiny radioactive things (Seeds? Astronauts? Ships? Rice Crispies?) actually surgically STUCK IN to their bodies, where the thing sits and emits death rays from within. Kind of like how in Black Christmas the killer was inside the house. Then it's removed. For me I travel to the external beam beamer once a day. It zaps me and then turns off. When I walk out I'm not radioactive. Don't worry.

My treatment is some new protocol test thing where I get lots of external zaps in fewer times than they used to - 20 sessions as opposed to 35 or 40. Why? I forgot. You think when you get a cancer diagnosis that you are going to continue to sit on the edge of your chair and listen raptly to every single word that falls out of your doctors' mouths when they talk, but what you don't realize is that this is fatiguing and after a while you don't remember much of anything and you don't pay attention. You become kind of eighth grade.

No one knows why.

Radiation is only five minutes a day - or if you really want to get specific it's more like 47 seconds a day. My breast is vibrating and hot and sore inside and out. The actual breast is bright pink, but the skin to the left of it on my chest, the part that showed when I was wearing a bikini back in the 70s looks really awful. I think this must be related to old sunburns from the past - those ignorant years of living a mile closer to the sun while being blond and slathering on orange greasy wonderful smelling Bain de Soleil, not regarding or knowing about sun damage / skin cancer / crocodile dullness. My cleavage et environs is reacting more ouchfully and uglificationishly to this radiating onslaught than the skin that was nestled away behind a bathing suit, because it's already half dead I guess.

It's not nice, this décolletage skin bubbling like it was deep fried or had kind of bad burn. Or maybe like I splattered french fry oil on it while working at McDonald's topless. Little bubbling red festering blisters. It was hurting enough on Friday that I pulled my shirt down off of my shoulder and held my seatbelt away from my body with my left hand while I was driving, but I think two days off over weekend made that abate.

No one knows why.

Now it itches and looks disgusting like plague boils - and nothing can be done really. Yes they give you cream. Here ma'am would you like a free sample of some cream? Some lovely all natural cream? Like all other skin creams, I don't think that this stuff actually does anything. I mean seriously. Have you ever in your entire life put cream on itchy irritated skin where it had any effect at all, whatsoever? I don't think so. I think that entire industry is a big fat scam. Kind of like the Tum's industry or the Tylenol industry. Have you ever taken a Tum's that actually made your stomach stop hurting? Have ever taken a Tylenol that actually relieved any of your pain? I call these industries out! Go away and do something else you large corporate boxes full of large vats of useless chemical nothing!

Yes of course it feels kind of cooling when you apply said cream but the same thing would be true if it were yogurt or chilled Jell-O or mud, right? It feels good for 1.3 seconds and then it goes right back to itching like mad.

No one knows why.

I'm not a doctor and I don't play one on TV but I am stuffing my head with knowledge about cancer. I don't know if this is making me smarter or more scared, but I do love the information so I eat it all up. Radiation is actually one of the most effective (okay let's just say it, it is THE most effective) treatments against cancer that we know.

No one knows why.

Here's what happens: All of the cells inside and out of the radiated area (read - left boob and surrounding suburbs) will die, but then new ones will be born as the cells repair themselves one rickety molecule at a time. But - the cancer cells won't be able to repair themselves. They are evil dictators, but even an evil dictator has a weakness, and in the case of the cancer cell the weakness lies in the fact that once the dictator takes over, he can't repair his body if he gets sick and dies. No one knows why.

So goodness does win out, just like in Harry Potter, the good cells can repair themselves once they're killed but the bad ones can't. That's kind of hopeful I think. Here's a quote from the doctor about this phenomenon: "No one knows why." I know I just said that but it bears repeating.

No one knows why.

We do have a cure for cancer. They could radiate your whole body and KILL ALL CANCER FOR SURE - except it'd kill you too.

Now it's Tuesday morning, after a long night of very heavy rain that scared Fiona so much that nobody in our home got much sleep till after 3 AM. My radiation oncology nurse just called to say not to come in this morning because the storm made their machine go bonkers. No one knows why. Well, thank you very much, I do agree that I should not go anywhere near a death ray machine that is out-of-control.

What should I do with myself today? Today is like a metaphor for my life right now, it stretches out in front of me, both long and short, gray, with no plan or purpose. I feel like a piece of dust floating in a beam not knowing whether to go up or down or left or right or how to or if to stand out or what I am, insignificant. And highly unadmirable. How can anyone admire someone who has lived through cancer and yet feels blah and doesn't feel like doing anything? Why am I not out jogging or getting fit or doing joyful yoga twice a day while drinking kale raspberry juice? Why am I not celebrating one more wonderful day of life when I didn't know just a while ago if I would be living? How have I failed this most basic of all human tests? See...this is the thing: I also "didn't know if I would be living" the day before I heard the word cancer and the week before that and 749 days ago and 22 years ago and yesterday and tomorrow and when I was 17 and 32 and 48 and in ten minutes and every 4th of July and most Wednesdays and during lunch meetings and while walking and weekends and on days because all of us none of us no one knows when we'll die or why. No one knows why. So this cancer experience while disgusting has not really changed me cuz I already knew things are iffy at best and the best things are free and here and now and that's ok. I'm just tired and, well, rather bored with this particular chapter.

No one knows why.

What I like is simply just to carry on with the fun girlitude of life and not revolve around the clogged rotten drain of screwy mutated cells. The kids acted in a play and played in an act and I drive and sing loudly with hilarious teens and this cures.