Radiation is almost over. Friday is the first day of each week for me, and St. Patrick’s Day is the first of my last half week. March 20 is my last day: thirty-three zaps. I learned that things change rapidly during treatment, but overall it has still been very easy. I never did get tired or lose my energy, and I never did go bald. I did go half bald. That is it—exactly half bald! After that third week my hair has only come off in small amounts. Mark really likes it and is in strong favor of a henna tattoo once my skin is recovered. Which brings me to my minor complaints: my bald skin/ear has just begun to be a little irritated in the last couple of days, and I am now deaf in my left ear. The ear is driving me crazy, but I’m told it is likely to get better after radiation ends. I did go deaf in that ear when I had my first craniotomy in 2008 for several weeks and it returned then.
I did have to go off of chemotherapy early. My platelets dropped thirty points two weeks in a row, but they kindly leveled out right at 102. 100 is the cutoff to stay on chemo, though 150 or above is where you want to be. They’ve been going back up ever since (very good news), and I got a total of 4 1/2 weeks of radiation and chemo together—which is great. I have a month off starting next Tuesday, then if my platelets are where they need to be, and my doctors don’t decide to change the plan, I’ll go back on chemo for another 4-5 months.
I am looking forward to going off the steroids, or at least taking less of them, more than anything. The sooner it can happen, the happier I will be. I misspell things so badly it is outrageous. I make Mark check anything written in pen, and spell-check is only good for so much. I misspelled my own last name in pencil at a check-in list last week! Online, I used “sights” for “sites.” It seems trivial, but when you do it constantly it gets old very quickly. I am looking forward to getting some of my spelling and reading ability back. Very, very much. In the meantime, there isn’t anything to do but laugh about it. Kristina Wadea makes a lot of errors.
The Pear Trees (which I spelled Pair in an e-mail to Mark today) on our street are blooming right now—so early! However, they are as beautiful as always. I hope everyone is having a wonderful beginning of spring, as we are. We intend to fling ourselves it into with even more gusto next week!
Love,--Kristina (& Mark)
