Thank you, everyone, for your well wishes and prayers. I have been on the new medicine for about a week now. They told me the most common side effects are skin rash and diarrhea to look out for. Skin rash is especially a “good” sign the medicine is working. I didn’t have anything until Sunday afternoon I started noticing some rash on my face. It’s not bad, they prescribed some topical solution for that. They said I should see some progress after using that for a week.

Other than that, it has been very quiet. I am gradually getting back on my feet. I am still sleeping quite a bit everyday. Just as well, with everything shut down due to coronavirus, I am happy to sit at home do nothing. 🙂

I am all done with brain radiation! Woohoo!! I have no more medical treatments of any kind of my calendar.

A fellow radiation patient and his family are so sweet, they got me flowers and gifts to celebrate the completion of radiation. I only met them when I started radiation a couple of weeks ago in the waiting room. I was scheduled after him everyday, so we got to know each other over the past couple of weeks. They got me yellow roses for friendship. People are so kind. Cancer patients have a special understanding of what we go through on a daily basis. We don’t miss an occasion for celebration.

On a personal level, I am relieved another difficult chapter is behind me. Brain radiation really took a lot out of me. As with every step on this journey, I learned something about myself. It’s like peeling an onion, there are layers and layers. After I slept and slept, (BTW, I think I slept as much as my cats did, that’s really saying something!) I realized I may not truly knew what my resting state was. I have always been a very productive person my whole life, running a business, volunteering, doing family stuff, trying to have a personal life, etc. I almost always had a full schedule. After clearing my calendar for 2 weeks, did nothing but rest, I felt the overwhelming exhaustion from radiation, yes, but from years of living life on the fast lane as well. Whenever I have something to do, I think my body automatically floods my system with adrenaline so I could get done what I needed to get done. Sometimes I would even get energized by it, but at a cost to my body I didn’t know.

Now that I know, I am going to step back from all regularly scheduled activities and let my body find its balance and restore the energy. The best thing I learned these past 2 weeks is I don’t need to be the driver, my body is. This life belongs to this body, I am just a passenger along for the ride. It has done the best all my life to serve me, now it’s my turn to serve it.

I remember when David was a little baby and every time he was sick, I felt so powerless. I felt the same way about my body clearly the last couple of weeks. I couldn’t do much of anything while this body is going through what it is going through. I couldn’t take away its pain, discomfort, exhaustion, feeling of helplessness, sadness, etc. but I could be there for myself like I was there holding David as a baby when he was sick. It didn’t change the circumstance one bit, but it certainly made it a lot easier to endure. I learned I could be there for myself unconditionally. This body doesn’t have to tell me what I want to hear, pain or discomfort doesn’t have to go away, things don’t have to be right for me to sit there with this body and just breath. It’s such a simple practice to be there for myself.

First of all, thank you for all your kind words and prayers. I appreciate you all in my life! I have not given up yet, I just don’t want to make things worse by poinsoning myself. I have to say by making that decision, I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. Even though I was handling chemo well, I didn’t realize how much I was dreading it. Now that I have no more chemo, I am so much happier and lighter. What a relief!

On top of that, I made the decision to allow my body do whatever it wants, eat whatever it feels like. I will never ever tell this body you should eat this or take this supplement because it’s good for you. If I ask it and it says, “no thank you”, that’s the end. I will not give this body anything to process and handle that it doesn’t ask for. Thankfully and somewhat surprisingly, it asks for vegan! This body simply has no intention of making itself suffer. No discipline needed!

I am in the process of going through brain radiation, so far so good. They scheduled me for a total of 10 treatments, I have done 4 as of today 2 the rest of the week and 4 next week. Then I am done. They told me brain tumors will be never be a problem for me again. Unless I have problem, they won’t even bother to have me for regular checkups! Very cool! Why didn’t they do this in the first place… oh, yes, there is this little caveat of turning my brain into mush. Since I don’t expect to be able to go back to work ever, I am fine with that. Next time I go to my tai chi class, I would just say, can I be in the middle please? LOL! (For those who don’t do tai chi, it’s an inside joke. The middle is reserved for new beginners who are not sure if they could remember the sequence of the set so if they get in the middle, they could follow everyone around them.)

The side effects so far has been manageable. I got some inflammation on my head, they prescribed steroids, I used CBD oil so far, it has done the trick. The other side effect is fatigue. They told me I would be tired, I had no idea I would be this tired! I have been taking 4-hour naps and sleeping 10-12 hours at night! I wasn’t going to fight it. Again, I let the body decide. If it wants to sleep, I am there. The rest of the time when I am not sleeping, I am not much better either, all I can do is sit around and practice the art of being a couch potato! 😝 Sometimes, Snowball, the cat, would come sit next to me. We are happy and content, feels like we have all the time in the world together. Every crazy cat lady’s dream life! 😍