Radiotherapy # 24, 9 to go

A shortl wait but everything went smoothly this morning.  Got talking to the dance teacher in the waiting area, she seems very nice and was really looking forward to the school holidays.

A couple of older men were there too, one explained that he had prostrate cancer to begin with which went up to his thyroid and now he has it in his face.  His poor face was all dark red on the side where he'd had radio.  His oncologist wanted him to go for another scan so he was worried that there would be more cancer somewhere, apparently he goes for blood tests to see if there's a problem.  He was hoping desparately that there wouldn't be another cancer.  I bet.  I could tell he was having a really hard time keeping his morale.  I think that's what i'm really starting to worry about, what happens when the treatment finishes and you are still scared about it coming back and having to go through it all again?

Then this old guy in the corner pipes up 'it's important to keep your spirits up'.  I said I was sick of people saying that, as if it would cure or wouldn't cure if one didn't keep ones spirit up, like it's your fault that you're ill, and in any case, it's not always easy to feel good about having cancer.  He just kept repeating it so I said, ok, what helps you keep up your morale.  I was expecting him to say 'wife/children/family' but no, he said I'm 81yrs old and my Dad got to 95.  I have made my mind up to get to 95yrs old!  There's no answer to that!

I am having trouble sleeping as my breast is so itchy and sore and I'm taking strong painkillers before going to bed.  It's very dark brown under the arm and the breast on top is going dark brown and is very itchy.  There is also lots of painful stabbing feelings inside.

Had a fairly painful kine session this evening too, he's trying to stretch the scar, which is difficult when it's already very sore to touch, but the energetic spot massages of various parts of my arm and shoulder are pain relieving.

I'm grateful for my work today; a heavy day again but we played charades for the end of the lesson (it's a great way of getting lots of questions in English out of them very quickly)  and I found myself offering to demonstrate the first challenge and it was the 'Full Monty', so I was pretending to give a striptease in front of my goggle-eyed first years. 

I'm also really glad it's the Christmas holidays now, what a relief, although it will bring some challenges in looking after the kids all day and doing radiotherapy but it's good to see that time stretching out in front of me.