Here and there updates

Radiation Update

I am on my third week of radiation treatment. I fell easily into the routine of running out of work at the end of the day and getting myself to the hospital for treatment. Now that I am used to the routine, the treatment doesn't seem to take as long. I think I am there a total of 15-20 minutes, and I get the beam for about 5 minutes. This week I have sunburn under my breast and it is very annoying. While they give me cream to  minimize the burning, they don't give you anything to apply that will sooth it. Bummer.

The man before me at radiation finished his treatment yesterday. As he came out of the treatment room and into the waiting room, he wished me luck. Then he turned to me and the technicians and spread his arms wide  and said, "There is nothing else left to say." So much is unspoken in these situations. But the silence is powerful.

Art Therapy

I am still attending Art therapy at the hospital. In fact they interviewed me for their hospital newsletter. I don't think it is out yet and I am anxious to read it.

Last night the therapist had us  trace a whole body on our paper. Then we had to chose colors or images that represented our pain and put them on the painful part of the body. After that we had to pick a color to go over it that would create healing. 

There were only 2 of us in class last night and we went right to work. When we were done we talked about the process. I picked the color brown to represent the pain, because the pain is shitty. When I looked at the drawing and saw the visual of how much pain I am in, I was taken aback. No wonder I have been dragging myself around all week. Then I picked the color purple as the healing color and colored in the whole body, front and back in purple. I picked purple because it is the color of spirituality, the balance of mind, body, spirit.

Then the woman next to me talked about her work. It was so ironic that our bodies were almost exactly the same. We used the same colors for pain and both used purple for the healing.  She added orange around the edges to symbolize the light radiating from her. 

After she spoke the therapist noticed that all three of us were wearing purple tops, purple, our healing color. It gave me the chills when she said that. 

Healing chills.