Six to one, half a dozen to the other!

Well, it's been a month since I've written anything and a lot has happened during that time. Caitlin has returned to college for her second year and we had a really nice week in Idaho. Larry's father passed away last week-he had lived with us for the past 3 years and it's really strange to not have him here. One of us will walk down the hall to check on him and oops-all gone. AND Caitlin has gotten me hooked on the Twilight Books! I have almost finished the second one with the third one sitting on my desk waiting to be devoured.

Went to the doctor's today as I have been having breast pain for the past few weeks. Not really "pain" rather intense tenderness with fullness and the good news is it's normal! The bad news is who knows? It may go away, it may not, it may get worse, it may get less, everyone is different and this is one of those fun radiation side effects. Apparently part of the destruction of radiation is it destroys the small blood vessels of the breast and causes shrinkage of the fatty tissue of the breast. So as you heal from the radiation things change, move and hurt. I'm visualizing sizzling bacon here. Anyway, I was told once again things can change for at least a year as you heal maybe longer. The fun one is the occasional stabbing pain in the chest-apparently that is from the damage done to the lungs. The blessing here is I had right sided breast cancer so it only involved my lungs, left sided breast cancer radiation does heart damage too. Don't you love it-the disease kills you, the cure maims you for life!

Just a side note- a twelve year study in Canada was written up in our newspaper this week that claims you really only need half as much radiation as is traditionally administered here in the States for early stage breast cancer. Lucky me!