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Image by Thirteen Of Clubs
Tuesday, May 17th 2011
Been a long time since a treatment update. I’ve got plenty of pictures, I just haven’t been in the mood to sort through, edit and post them. Tonight is the night before my last chemo infusion, so I thought that merited a little extra effort.

I’ve had two treatments since my last update, and just one left to go. The second round of side effects wasn’t quite as bad as the first, or it didn’t feel as bad because I knew what to expect. As you can see, I’ve lost more of my hair, including some thinning of my eyebrows, but these last bits are stubborn and won’t fall out. I think that I’ve only had to shave my face twice since starting chemo a couple months ago. In this picture it’s been 2 1/2 weeks since my last shave, and it seem like I have less than a day’s worth of stubble.
Due to a scheduling conflict, I had an extra week of rest since my last treatment so I’m feeling pretty tip top right now. The side effects were particularly bad following the last one, so despite it being my last treatment, now that I’ve had some extra time not being full of poison, I’m really not looking forward to another round of side effects.

I guess a week or two more of side effects won’t be too bad. The main thing I’m not looking forward to is the combo of nausea + hypersensitivity to smells. Not to be too gross, but I’ve been enjoying being able to pee without the smell of my own urine inexplicably triggering the taste of a mouthful of pills.

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carotid artery


Image by Sheila Steele
is vulnerable

I straight up stole the idea for this from Richard Kuhne. There are two treatments of the same photo.

Angie had done a selfportrait in this bathroom and I used her camera and settings.

I was so totally taken with Kuhne’s photo that I had problems constraining myself from taking over the comments on the page which were in a lighter vein (pun not intended but noticed) than the darker observations I would have expressed.

And of course it is not good manners to burst into someone else’s party and hang crepe.

Questions of mortality are, nonetheless, everpresent in my awareness since the home invasion where my cameras were stolen less than a month ago.

It was not only the cameras. A DVD player, cash (removed from a change purse which was not taken) a tub of tobacco, a box of tubes, the roller, my bic lighter, some pills and an old bottle of methadone which I’d found in Marlon’s room after he left and which I had stashed in a drawer because I didn’t know what to do with them, a new box of Blondissima hair bleach, and some groceries: an economy sized jar of instant coffee, a large jar of mayonnaise and two packages of wieners out of the fridge freezer. This seemed to me fairly conclusive evidence that this was done by addicts living on an edge of economic and psychic reality more desperate than my own.

I called Richard and Ang who came right away — Ang got here first and Richard got a speeding ticket and arrived at approximately the same time as the police.

The police took what information I could provide at the time — and it was only later in the day, around supper time, when I discovered the slit in the screen of the door because Fiddy wanted to be let in and had clawed at the screen making the separation obvious in the light.

That was when I felt the chill of realization that my intruders were in possession of a strong, sharp blade. And the vulnerability of that lifeline artery, the obvious place to slit to silence a person who has awakened and might scream or call for help.

I made a screen grab and posted it and I received supportive messages from friends on Flickr who grasped immediately that the loss of stuff was secondary to the fact I was physically unharmed. Apart from Ang and Rick, and Barry who immediately fixed and reinforced the screen the response from those I know in town has been much more ho-hum. People are concerned with securing their own survival in this dangerous crime-infested town and there is an undertone that I have somehow brought this on myself by living where I live, how I live. I have survived so many catastrophes over the years that it is almost expected — catastrophe will come and I will survive.

The loss of the cameras has proven to be not as terrible as I thought. I can get access to cameras — I just have to plan and plot the images I want to make.

We all have flesh and bones and vulnerable places where a swift slice can stop us between heartbeats. Including the critters who invaded my home and stole my stuff.

77 of 365/2- I dyed my hair… as usual


Image by Pahz
I’ve been dying my hair for so long, I don’t recall my natural hair color. I know it was in the brown-ish, red-ish range, but now it’s mostly grey. Maybe 50, 60 % grey. At least. But of course, it isn’t GREY, it’s actually silver so it shines and draws attention to itself.

I can’t control the blood pressure pills I have to take (hereditary blood pressure, thanks, Dad!), the fact I had to have my knee replaced before 40, my hearing loss, or even the fibromyalgia… but I can damn well control the grey. And I do. Every four weeks with a six dollar bottle of Natural Instincts. (I used to go more natural, then burgundy-black. But I can’t find it anymore and now I go all-black).