I attended my first Dolly Parton concert when I was two, in 1977. I was cooking the other day when my notifications started going off like crazy. Once I was able to clean my hands, I saw why: my friends were giving me their condolences that she was gone. I have a lot to say about her, but since then I’ve also lost Tim Curry and Gloria Steinem, and the world keeps tipping off its axis.
I have cried several times over Dolly’s passing. I still haven’t cried about the cancer, but I have about the outpouring of support I’ve received.
There’s a lot of good and bad right now. Some of the good: Dante is the teacher of record for the first time, I got to see a great play last night at B Street, and I signed the divorce papers (now the state just has to stamp them)!
This morning, I went into Sacramento for another biopsy, this time to put a radioactive seed in me, where the density is. (Maybe this post should be a short story about the density, which I’m bolding because that’s how I pronounce it.) After making sure, with a geiger counter, that it was working, they sent me home and told me no babies or small animals should touch my boob, but my baby girl, Snowball II, jumped right up on it. She’s now pouting, away from me, because I told her she could be on any body part but that one.
Last night and tonight I have to take an antibiotic shower and then put absolutely nothing on my hair or skin (besides pjs) and sleep on clean sheets, before getting to the hospital at 5:30 a.m. for my 7:30 surgery.
I’m guessing since I’m not even allowed to put on under eye cream that I shouldn’t take a magic marker to just above my breasts. I was going to write “Patty” with a 🙂 over the right one & “Selma” with a 🙁 over the left one, just to help, in case the seed or the biopsy holes on Selma weren’t enough to guide them toward the problematic one.
(Maybe this post should be about what kind of radioactive powers Selma will get.)
I’ve gotten my sick bed set up, with special pillows, and a small collection I’ve started of Funko versions of strong women to help see me through. The Dolly one is modeled after her 1977 tour.
I guess this post was about her after all.
I’m sorry to hear about your journey with the density. If I were listening to someone who pronounced some of their words in bold font, I wonder if I’d be able to tell? Probably not but now I’m wondering.
Even though I’ve helped with some unusual breast cancer devices like Mammosite and SAVI, I’d never heard of using a radioactive seed to localize the site like this. Today during a radiation procedure I asked a radiation oncologist to weigh in on it. He understood how clinics are trying to avoid using a guide wire, which makes sense.
I know it’s probably best to heed whatever recommedations you receive regarding radiation safety. But as a therapeutic medical physicist it’s hard for me to resist mentally working out that there is a zero percent chance Snowball II will suffer any negative radiation-induced impact from being close to you and your erstwhile singe radioactive seed. On the other hand I’m also a cat lover, so I’m hoping you’ll let us know about her newfound and awesome radiation-induced super powers.