You find yourself there one morning in the radiation oncology department, dressed in your jeans and a johnny.  Some part of you has a tumor that may respond well to radiation - may stop growing, even begin to shrink or may be made less painful and more tolerable. 

The first day, the nurse will lay you down on the table, work the accelerator using your x-rays and bone scan as a map to pinpoint where the tumor is so as to direct the radiation to the right place.  You have to lie very still and position is important.  Once the exact position has been established, points are drawn on your skin with a marker and out comes the needle and the bottle of India ink.  The points (three or four of them) are tattooed onto your skin.  It’s really rather ingenious - these are small, unobtrusive marks that won’t wash away and which will tell the nurse how to precisely line up the machine for your radiation treatments over the following weeks.

You are assigned a time to come in - every week day.

The next day, you’ll probably find the waiting room has several people in it.  Most of them are older and some are fairly frail.  You may discover (even though you really did know it) that you are not the only woman without hair and that at least one woman is considerably less shy and more courageous that you are about showing her noggin.  And you might feel a little silly because you were just thinking how hot and inconvenient your hat was and wishing you had the nerve to dispense with it - at least around people who are up the same creek!

A curious intimacy happens in the radiation oncology waiting room.  As treatment progresses and the days go by, you get to know some of these people who wait with you every morning.  You will learn what brought them there and sometimes the specifics of their treatment,  You might find out that Mr. T likes broccoli but hates gingerbread and that Ms C. has beautiful grandchildren and funny-looking cats.  Mr. S. is feeling hopeful because, between chemotherapy and radiation, the tumor in his throat has all but disappeared.  For some though, this is a more or less palliative thing; they have been here before and, if they’re lucky, may be here again in the future.

Over all, there is a very comradely feeling.  Whatever your backgrounds are, however diverse your origins, colors and beliefs, you are all here for the same reason.  Despite differing levels of education or success, for a little while every day, you are brothers and sisters of experience.  You come in every morning, and most sincerely wish each other well before you go to spend your few minutes on the table.

Eventually, the treatment reaches its end.  You have had as much radiation to the affected part as is needed (or as your body can tolerate).  You don’t have to get up early in the morning any more to rush to the hospital before you can do anything else with your day.

That last day is hard.  Your companions in the waiting room already know because you all count down each other’s days as a matter of course.  There will be hugs, maybe a few tears, and most heartfelt wishes for each other’s ongoing well being.  Being the time of year it is, there will probably be some holiday wishes sprinkled in there too.

And then you will go home and likely never see each other again.

But in your heart, there’s a room where you hang a picture of each of them.  And every so often, you go and look at the pictures and say prayers.

Myria’s been wanting a new MP3 player for a long time so a while ago she finally ordered herself a Zune:

It came with a case, but she didn’t like it and so she asked me to knit a little pouch for it.  So, since it hadn’t arrived yet, I looked up the measurements on-line and then went to work.  I had more than enough yarn left over from her mitts and that seemed appropriate since the new little gadget was also pink :)

The overall pattern of the mitts was way too big for a Zune sock, so I modified it.  Instead of flowers and leaves, I just made leaves.  It doesn’t match exactly, but it coordinates very well.

She is thrilled with it and it doesn’t seem to matter to her that it was simple as can be.  It’s really, really nice when someone likes a thing you’ve made for them :)

We had our first snow last night!

It’s not going to last long; the temperatures are still too warm for that.  And I know I’ll be heartily sick of snow if we get a lot of it this season.

But just now, right this moment, it’s pretty and I love it :)

Besides, while I was out with Captain Cranky yesterday afternoon…

...Myria put up the Christmas lights.  They were a very pretty and festive sight to come home to!  It just makes the heart happy :)

I love a good Cobb Salad and when I discovered that - quite coincidentally - I had most of the ingredients on hand, I decided to try and throw one together for lunch this afternoon.  It started with a small chicken breast, shredded.

I don’t often have cooked chicken on hand.  Yesterday, we had planned on having chicken and couscous for supper, so the chicken was all thawed and ready for the grill but we decided to eat out instead - steak subs, hard stuff to resist. But the chicken still had to be cooked, so Myria did that little thing.  When it had cooled a mite, it got sealed into a plastic bag and was remanded to the fridge.

Then came the avocado:

Again, not something I usually have available.  They had been on sale and were beautiful and perfect, so I got two.  It’s an interesting thing when you feel thoroughly spoiled because you’ve treated yourself to an avocado :)

The mushrooms came next…

I have always been a huge mushroom fan and have always included the little darlings in my salads.  However, until a little while ago, I always used the fresh article.  They’re good and I won’t stop using them but I discovered recently that canned or bottled mushrooms have a different flavor.  Not better - but different.  So I’ve been playing with those to see if they go better with some things than the fresh ones.

Then the tomatoes…

These are grape tomatoes that I picked up for a song.  Apparently a couple of packages had broken and the produce manager just combined the results and marked them down to less than half price.  There wasn’t a bad tomato in the whole box - and they’re so delicious:)

...the cheese…

This was the remainder of a small chunk of Colby (a very mellow cheddar) which had begun to grow green whiskers in the fridge.  I just trimmed that part off and cut up the rest for the salad.  Seriously folks, you don’t need to toss cheese that’s begun to go moldy.  Just trim off the mold; the rest of the hunk is just fine.  After all, what did you think the veins in the blue cheese were?  Heheh…

...the cashews…

I love these things and it seemed like the salad could use a little crunch factor.  It worked out wonderfully!

...and, finally, the dressing.

If you’re not on a medically restricted diet, do yourself a favor and use a regular rather than a light or a fat-free dressing - the difference is phenomenal.  I used blue cheese here because it’s probably my favorite of all.  A light grind of sea salt and several grinds of fresh black pepper and you’re ready to go.  I tell you, putting this thing together is almost as much fun as eating it.

Almost :)

I know, I know, there’s no lettuce.  There also isn’t any blue cheese (other than the dressing), bacon or hard-boiled egg.  I don’t have any lettuce on hand and don’t buy it very often because I always have to throw half of it away.  Besides, I sometimes feel that lettuce is just there to take up space.  I can manage it, but I’m never going to love it.  The bacon and egg would have been wonderful if I’d had them, but I didn’t and frankly, didn’t miss them.  If I happen to have them next time, in they’ll go!

I was very pleased with my experiment and just thought I’d pass it along in case someone else might enjoy it too.

Bon appetit!