The Best Laid Plans...

This cancer thing really ticked me off today.  I'm downright annoyed.

Today I learned that I'll be starting radiation this week.  My "dry run" is tomorrow (we'll go through all the steps except the actual zapping me with radiation) and my treatments start on Wednesday.  This is a good thing.  It's what I've been waiting for.  So why am I ticked off?

Apparently there are way too many people being treated for cancer in State College, PA (which saddens me--but that's another story).  The radiation schedule is so full that they've had to expand into evening hours.  The earliest time they could give me is 7:15 pm. 

I was thinking radiation wouldn't be so bad.  The hospital is just a hop, skip and jump from my office.  I'd leave at any point during the work day, run down for my treatment, and be back at my desk within an hour.  A great way to use one of the gazillion sick hours I've accumulated over the last 9 years.  But with the late appointment time I'll have to go home, eat dinner, then drive all the way back to where I already was for most of the day.  And more importantly, I'll lose my favorite hour of home time. 

Between 7 and 8 is when I usually get some exercise on the treadmill in my basement.  Or do some reading.  Or work on my blog.  Or maybe catch a quick nap.  Or on some rare days maybe go out to dinner.  But no more.  My formerly favorite hour is now radiation time.  Just to throw salt in the wound, I had three days out of the next 7 that I actually had plans during what is now my cancer treatment time.  Valentine's dinner out with Nick has been canceled.  He had to cancel some plans of his own to rearrange to be able to cook me something nice at home before my dry run.  My friend Heather is flying in on Friday and that was supposed to be our beer and wings night at the local brewpub.  Wings have been bumped up to an early dinner, beer will have to come home with us in a growler, and we'll be having a stop at the hospital cancer center for dessert.  Next Monday's dinner with my friend Fiona and her husband will have to become after-dinner/after-treatment drinks.  That's three events I was really looking forward to that this lousy radiation treatment time has screwed up for me.

I shouldn't complain.  It'll probably be only a couple of weeks before someone finishes their treatment and I can be bumped up to a better time slot.  I'm fortunate that they can get me started this quickly.  I'm fortunate that the hospital is only 15 minutes from my house and 6 minutes from my office.  I'm amazingly fortunate that radiation is just a precaution and not a necessity for my survival.  Yet I can't help but be annoyed by this new monkey wrench in my life.

Tomorrow I'll feel better.  I'll get some perspective.  I'll remember what's really important.  Today, however, I will allow myself to feel ticked off by how cancer has inconvenienced me.