Too Much Radiation Information?

The seventh day of radiation proved to be informative.

Maybe too informative, if ya know what I mean.

The night before, I was up all night because of continual urination.

I overslept after I finally fell asleep.

When I woke up, I was late.

I had to jump in the car and white knuckle it through a rainstorm and construction and past an accident to get to the hospital on time. You don't want to be late to radiate because there is a very tight schedule of people coming and glowing.

I got there just in the nick of time.

I admit, I was feeling shitty.

They called me in and almost immediately....

"Are you okay, Ice?"

"yeah, I'm allright. Let's do this thing."

I hopped on the sled. They put me in position. They left for the viewing station. I went under the scan. I felt like I was under for a long time. They came down and said I was "positioned wrong" and had to start the whole thing all over again, which they did.

Little did I know how polite they were being.

I got up, put my clothes on and left without telling them my usual horrible joke.

On the way out, I told a nurse about the problem with leaking. She said, "It's a normal side effect but it's a little early for it to be starting. If it doesn't go away by tomorrow, I'll prescribe something".

Still feeling shitty, I stopped on the way out of the hospital to have a bowel movement.

I got home and the peeing continued unabated.

For the rest of the day, I was going to the john every 10-15 minutes.

It became clear that I couldn't sleep with my wife as my constant getting up and going to the bathroom made it impossible for HER to sleep as well.

I moved upstairs to another bedroom with a full bath.

I woke up seven times to pee before I finally woke up for real.

I showered and went off to the hospital, this time leaving 45 minutes early.

Sure enough, I ran into a traffic jam that cost me 20 minutes and during that time I somehow managed to contain myself.

The rest of the trip to the hospital took another ten minutes.

Let me say, I was relieved when I got there.

They called me in and asked if I was feeling better.

"Aside from being up all night peeing, I feel great why do you ask?"

"You didn't look like you were feeling good yesterday and we were worried about you"

I explained "that I was feeling shitty yesterday because I'm a guy who always gets to a place early and when I have to white knuckle it to an appointment, I always carry a trace of the frustration that I had trying to get there on time. It has an effect on my mood when I first walk in."

Mike said "Amy has the same problem"

Amy concurred" Yes I'm always arriving right on time or a minute late. Always in a big tense rush to work"

I said, "Amy, there's a whole different and beautiful world waiting for you that you know nothing about. Your job and your life will change immediately if you get to work a half hour early. You can grab a cup of coffeee, read the paper, have a chat, whatever and then when you're ready to start, you're ready to start"

She said "I like the way you put that. I need to start doing that."

I told her that once I had started getting to work early it totally changed my work experience. "You know how yesterday, I appeared rattled and ornery because I got here in the nick of time. Remember, how clear it was to every body that I wasn't the same guy. That guy is the guy that you are when you get here in the morning in the nick of time and just like you recognized that in me, your co-workers recognize that in you"

I climbed into the sled, They positioned me. They hit me with the rays. They lifted me off the sled. 

Amy came down from the viewing booth.  She told me that what I had said was was good advice.

I encouraged her to try it and see. "If you set the goal to be a half hour early even if you're twenty minutes late, you're still ten minutes early."

Amy laughed and said she had never looked at it like that.

On the way out, the Doctor was ready to see me.

She asked me about the peeing. I described it as best I could. I've never been real good at describing the act of urination so it was kind of awkward.

She asked me if I had eaten anything unusual during the weekend.

I told her that I had attended two Easter buffets and whatever I had, I had a lot of  but no, there was nothing exotic.

Then she asked me about bowel movements.

Again, I don't have the vocabulary to be accurate so I told her that "Yesterday after the radiation. I got rid of a lot"

She said," I'm glad because yesterday DURING your scan we noticed you had a lot of stool  so we couldn't get a great picture. In today's scan there was much less stool and a much better picture."

Needless to say, I was flabbergasted at this iinformation which is just part of modern technology that can find just about anything within your body except your soul.

I've got to realize now that every time I get on the sled, everybody in the room is seeing exactly how full of shit I am in three dimension.

I clearly was feeling like shit the day before and the reason why I was feeling like shit, apparently, was that I WAS  full of shit.

Everybody knew it but me.

That's usually how it goes when somebody is full of shit and it's probably why people feel shitty in the first place.

Just sayn'.

So the doctor fixed me up with another prescription that should confront the constant urination problem.

Finally the she advised that I start drinking a lot of cranberry juice so maybe next time, I wouldn't be so full of shit.

Of course she didn't SAY exactly that but that IS exactly what she meant.

Smoove.

And I've managed to type this whole thing without having to get up and pee even once.

Now, I'm gonna go downstairs and hit up some cranberry juice.