Three Days Down

Yesterday, radiation day three, really wasn’t a big deal. Not at all. In fact, even the traffic into MGH wasn’t massively execrable. Fridays are usually lighter though and this was school vacation day, slimming the inbound river of steel even more.

a wicked style offense

An aside: the commute is proving to be the most onerous aspect, so far, of this whole protonization thing. A not insignificant reason for this is that the vast majority of cars on the road are blindingly boring, monster insults to the very concept of style AND they only come in black, white or grey. What the radical fuck? Yesterday I saw a gargantuan SUV with a Porsche tag on the bumper. Fer fuck’s sake, it was a goddamn PORSCHE but bore NO appreciable stylistic difference from a Hyundai or a Kia. Just a bulky, ugly box with vague, almost imperceptible nods to grace.

What a proper Porsche should look like

Yes, for all that is visually pleasing, I was horribly offended. Of course!

Back to Protonville though, there’s nothing majorly claustrophobia inducing about the actual procedure and it’s quick (15 minutes compared to two+ hours when my spine is MRIed), the techs are pleasant and the waiting areas are comfy with interesting, if unchallenging, art. I may even forgo the calm-me-down pill for Monday’s session.

Best biz of all, I’m now able to rollator from the parking garage to the proton department without taking any rest breaks. Shockingly, the total distance from car to proton chamber and back is less than what I’ve been rollating here at home. So, today—a no-radiation day—I’ll push myself to walk a bit farther along the seawall.

My iPhone tells me that, this week, my stride length is 20.4” (the median for women is 26”—I’m on the low side). My walking speed is 1.4 mph (I’m moving but slow for my age and gender. 2.77 to 3.0 is the uszh). My general distance walked though was half a mile! HALF A MILE! That’s très bon, sehr gut and just bloody fantastico!

Remember, if you please, I had four total, ginormous neurosurgeries in 2020 and 2021 (two spine, two brain). After op number two, I worked up to walking a mile+ on six out of seven mornings each week. Jen was by my side in case I needed a bit of support (emotional or physical—Jen’s THE best!) but I ambled without walker or cane.

This half mile shit is HUUUUUUGE! This past year (since March ’21’s mobility stealing brain surgery—operation número tre) 113 steps per day (1/20th of a mile) has been my average. This number includes the weeks/months when I could only walk whilst seated in one of those hammock/holster things suspended from the ceiling, wearing my brace, holding onto a walker, surrounded by three spotters, one of whom followed me with a wheelchair (in case I had to suddenly sit down).

So, from now on, unless I’m utterly fried, I’m rollating (until I graduate to a cane) instead of wheelchairing.

WOO FUCKING HOO!!!