Less Radiation

We may be at home for daffodil season.

We’ve received some more good news: my husband will need just three weeks of radiation treatment, not six.

However, the daily work of cancer management, treatment, and healing (appointments, managing complications, making phone calls, taking medications, and serving up frequent meals) remains relentless for us both, and my days are far more broken up into tiny bits and scattered with interuptions than my mental health seems willing to handle.

The news is good: shrinking tumor, moving onto radiation soon, and less of that radiation than we thought. But the path is still hard and exhausting for both me as a caregiver and for John, who must deal with all of the above while still recovering from each chemo round or complication.

The light at the end of the tunnel is visible, and I’m grateful. But gosh, it all still seems a long way away.

Spring will be extra sweet this year. Friends of John’s from the municipal band he plays trombone in planted 100 fragrant daffodils for me last fall. I can’t wait until they start blooming. If past years are any indication, the daffodils should be in bloom around the time we end radiation therapy.

Rouge mixed daffodils in the Kitty Garden, April 27, 2024.

If there’s anything I like being snarky about as much as I like being snarky about cars, it’s being snarky about plants, flowers, and gardens. I am looking forward to stringing together more time for garden work, walking, and writing.

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Whitsun seems to know when we’re settling down for quiet rest. If I lay on the floor to do a breathing exercise, she tucks herself up Buddha-like on the nearby footstool and squints wisely at me. Here she curled up nearby after I sat down to read in the evening and purred and trilled herself into a sound sleep, like a tiny furry dragon.