Author Archive

And so I wait.

It’s been a month since my last radiation treatment. I feel better than I felt a month ago, but I have a ways to go until I feel the level of zippy to which I am accustomed…before all this started. In the last few weeks ...

Before I had surgery last October, my voice sounded like Minnie Mouse, and I felt as though I spoke a bit like Elmer Fudd. I had difficulty swallowing which made every meal an adventure. Seven months after surgery I felt as though I had made quite a bit of improvement. I knew that the tumor was still a big problem, but I felt better on a day-to-day basis than I had felt ...

Jon, Rachel and I left Port Washington at about 10A for my 3:30P appointment. I went armed with ice paks, blanket, pillow and hot tea (for my cold). This is the day we’ve been waiting for…for seven weeks, but really for more like 18 years. This day will be especially long; not only will it be radiation Monday, but we are also traveling up to Boston and back in the same day…long ...

My session is at 7:30A today. Jon cleared out the apartment yesterday. We pack up our stuff to leave the amazing Liberty Hotel, we check out around 10:30A and hit the road. It almost feels like the end…but it’s not…it’s a false sense of completion. Today would have been my last day, but I need to make up the session I missed over the July 4th holiday. So I’m out, but ...

Thursday…the thirty third session…the second Photon session of the week (I still have another one to go this week…universe give me strength)…these firewall creating sessions are especially tough. I do very little today because little is all I can do. I want this week to be over. I want this to be over. I want to be home.

Jon and I checked out of Beacon House and into the Liberty Hotel for the last two days of the last full week of my last few sessions…and today is my last Proton session ever…a day to celebrate. No more mask.

As I lay on the table in my usual immovable strapped to the table way, counting down the four classic rock songs on the radio it takes for the session to end….end forever, I start ...

Sick, sick, sick…just feel like I’m slogging through. I’m worn out. The travel, the sessions, it’s Tuesday (always tough), I feel nauseous almost all the time, and all these things combined, make me depressed. I hope Mr. Dubenschmeimer is feeling as horrible as I’m feeling.

After a slow moving, crappy morning…Jon and I go out for the smallest of walks around the block just so that I can get an airing; shortly after ...

Rachel is too sick to go to camp and I feel bad to leave her, but Jamie and my parents will watch over her and hopefully she will feel good enough tomorrow to resume her normally scheduled program.

Right before Jon and I are about to leave New York to travel to Boston, I got the call…”Heidi, Proton is down today, you’ll have to go to Photon at 4P”. I’m not thrilled about this (I ...

Rachel sprouted a cold and I have to try every incantation in the book to see that I don’t get this cold. We spend most of the weekend trying to stay clear from each other…this is sad for both of us…but necessary.

MGH Beacon House is no Liberty Hotel…but it does get internet service, it has over 100 channels on TV, the air conditioning works, it has a fridge with a freezer in wich I can keep my most needed cold paks (for my post-radiating headaches), the shower head is high and strong, and it has an elevator. It also has twin hospital beds complete with plasticized mattresses and pillows…in case one is to have an ...