September 12 - Okay, I still have thrush so tonight I will be picking up a stronger medicine to fight it off with. And I'm definitely under the impression that a lot of my pain is due to the thrush and not so much the radiation effects, which seriously sucks!

Went and saw my primary care doc today, Dr. K. Just to check in with her and review how things are going. I'm miserable, cranky, tired, hungry, in pain..........things are going as expected. :-) On the bright side, she was happy to hear that I quit smoking, am barely drinking, and have shed 25 pounds. Next on her list is trying to convince me to get the flu shot. I resisted. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Why would anyone voluntarily get dead flu virus shot into their body?? I told her to let me ponder it a bit.

Radiation was more traumatic than norm yesterday. When I finished my frying session on Friday, Maggie (hot, young, blonde tech) was the only one unbolting me from the table. There are usually 3-4 of them buzzing around, one is removing the pillow from under my legs, another is lowering the table, a third is waiting for me to hand over my retainers, etc. I asked Maggie where everyone was and she said that Anne (older, soft spoken, blonde tech) took a half day, Wendy (sometimes grumpy, roly-poly, brunette tech) called in sick, and Paul (in touch with his feminine side tech) was setting up the computer for the next "customer". Then yesterday I noticed that Wendy still hadn't made an appearance and if she was sick for 5 full days then it must be some pretty awful bug and not for nothing, I sure as heck hope that I wasn't exposed to it! So, I asked Anne if Wendy was still sick and was told that Wendy "passed away" over the weekend. I was not given details and did not ask for them but based on a couple of comments such as the fact that today would have been her 40th birthday, I got the feeling that she may have offed herself. :-( Here I am going in for preventative radiation so that I can hopefully get a few more miles out of my extremely abused 40+ year old body and poor Wendy decides there just isn't any reason to go on. Serious bummer.

Then I got even more depressed after talking to the nurse about my thrush. I told her that Dr. A had said it takes 1-2 months after radiation ends for things to start bouncing back. My hope is that my taste buds are back online in time for Thanksgiving dinner. The nurse grimaced and told me that the taste buds are the last thing to revive and it can often take 6-12 months for them to be functioning again. WHAT?!? Talk about a bunch of crap. I'm so tired of getting different info from different parties. I'll see what my Indian doc says on Monday and I'll continue asking health care professionals until I get two answers that match!

Okay, I'm done griping for the day. Cranky girl is off to get zapped again and then in to work to clean up whatever customer issues have come to pass since 11:00 yesterday morning. <sigh> 13 more days to get through................