Today I had my first radiation treatment. When I walked into the dressing room I've been in several times before, I noticed the dirty laundry bag.

(I inquired whether either I or my clothing were actually radioactive biohazards, and they assured me the linen bags were misleading and needed to be replaced.)

The person who does the radiation (nurse? specialist?) led me back to the room, which she assured me was always dark and cold. There, in the middle of the floor, was a bench with the same 50 SHADES OF GREY pegs to hold onto above your head.

We quickly dispensed with the niceties of the cape, and I gripped the handles and shut my eyes while the woman told me to just lie there "like a sack of potatoes" while they manuevered me into the proper position for nuclear reaction. (I don't know if that's exactly what radiation is, but hey.)

Then they took about 35 X-rays while speaking to me through an intercom. They assured me they could see me and hear me via microphones and two TV monitors in case I decided to freak out. As I listened to today's line-up, "Jack and Diane" and something I feel very confident was by the Black Eyed Peas, I stared at two red lights in the ceiling, wondering if they were the lasers that would radiate me.

Then I wondered if my eyes might laser shut.

This morning, I didn't put on dry shampoo because the ingredient list contained aluminum, and they told me not to wear normal deoderant that works in summer because it contained aluminum and I pictured my head starting on fire.

Then I wondered, while waiting there, if my shorts would actually become radioactive, which would make me sad, because they are both linen and Athleta and those are two things I don't have a lot of in my life.

I listened to "Jack and Diane" and wondered if my entire cancer experience would be narrated by '80s hits while the machine reared up its head and started rotating its way around me. It didn't actually show any laser beams, as I had anticipated, but it fried one side of me then rotated around and hit the other, all in the space of about ten minutes.

I went back to the closet and put on my clothes. A nurse took me into a room and told me about the healing properties of aloe vera, which the lab pharmacy would sell me at cost for ~$2. When and if the burns got worse, she had samples of other lotions that I own from when the little angel was a very chapped-face baby.

She said the fatigue was cumulative, so I probably wouldn't notice it for a while, and if I felt tired, I should get some exercise. I realize that seems counter-intuitive, but I've always found the if you can't take a nap, the best cure for a case of the tireds is a brisk walk around the block, preferably outside.

They gave me a schedule leading up until the Friday before Labor Day. I left. I sold some books at Half-Price Books. I bought some hanging plants on clearance at Walmart that I thought I could save from certain Walmart death. I took them home. I hung them up and gave them plant food and water. I ate dinner with my parents and the little angel.

I thought maybe this radiation thing won't be so bad.

It remains to be seen. They say the fatigue and skin burns will come later. But the worst fatigue I've ever felt in my life came when I was unemployed and not taking my meds for microscopic colitis and I developed a Vitamin D absorption problem and my friends, I wasn't sure if I would ever be able to work again because I COULD NOT WAKE UP in the mornings. Fortunately, now I take 50,000 units of Vitamin D once a week and I get up before seven on the daily, but let me tell you if something is off with your body the struggle is real even to get out of bed. I always used to think people were exaggerating. Not anymore. There are lots of people who struggle with chronic fatigue every day. Please understand that feels like not trusting your body to rev up at all. It's terrifying to think you might actually not be able to get out of bed. I hope I never experience that fear again.

So, in a way, having a Vitamin D deficiency, after one day, was scarier than radiation. For sure having a broken leg and a plate put in was scarier than radiation.

It's funny. I always thought cancer treatment would be the scariest thing ever. I realize I'm at the low end of the scale, but it's still cancer treatment. I now measure medical hell on a scale of CAN I MOVE to OMG I MAY NEVER WALK AGAIN.

There have been a lot of moments along the way on this cancer journey where I've seriously questioned my ability to go on, but today is not one of them. But, tomorrow I'll be two hours late to work because of radiation. And that will go on, two hours late or two hours gone early, for 22 work days. That's the hard part, the logistics. The hard part is not fighting cancer, but fighting cancer while the rest of the world goes on like everything is normal when it is so not normal for you.

ONWARD.

It seems like more than one day ago I found out I've been diagnosed with Stage 0 DCIS.

Yesterday, I was all, I can totally handle this. This? This is like nothing. I've always assumed I would get cancer because my mom did and this is the totally easiest cancer. This is going to be fine.

I told people my biggest relief in all this was that I didn't find out I had it when I was unemployed, because my head would've exploded. I am being totally sincere in that. God made the insurance refuse to cover my mammogram until after March 15. I started my job on February 13. That is so not a coincidence.

If I had found this out when I was unemployed, I'm not sure I would be in the same place mentally I am in today. Thank God for small favors, because these calcifications were totally in me a few months ago. I know they were. I just did not, at that time, know they were there.

Tonight I went to see Sheryl Sandberg talk about her new book, OPTION B. It was a good talk and she's an amazing person, but at one point she said, "If you want to shut down a room, just say yesterday you got diagnosed with cancer."

Yesterday I did get diagnosed with cancer.

Of course I started bawling there in Unity Temple.

And of course people came up during the question and answer period with stories so much more horrific than mine that I felt bad, but we've all been down the road of the Suffering Olympics and know they don't give out medals at the end. My suffering is mine and yours is yours and the poor pregnant woman whose five-year-old had died of cancer LAST MONTH WHILE SHE WAS PREGNANT CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE has hers. All we can do is lift each other up.

The thing I didn't realize that I'm sure other people do is when you tell a bunch of people who care about you something scary and dangerous has happened, the response can be a little overwhelming. I have always adored people paying attention to me for good things, but I'm finding it extremely uncomfortable to have them pay attention to me for bad things. That is super interesting to me. I wonder why that is? It probably means I'm really arrogant and don't want anyone to think I'm weak or something for having like ductal carcinoma in situ with necronic asswipey cells that are determined to dance the cancer tango if I don't annhilate them like the little rat bastards they are. And that's true. I don't like people thinking I'm weak, though I am so totally weak. Especially not after they just had to be nice to me in 2016 because I broke my leg and wrecked my car and lost my job. It's like I can't even navigate basic life skills or something.

Damn, this is embarrassing.

But in some ways, the cancer thing is slightly less embarrassing than the leg, or the car or the job, because this one is totally not on me. I couldn't have headed my asswipey cells off at the pass any more than I did by getting yearly mammograms. For once, it wasn't my lack of foresight or tendancy to stay put in a company I liked or lacking brake pads or eye-hand coordination that got me here.

I swear I did not bring this on myself.

That's actually one of the things Sheryl Sandberg talked about that I really liked, that you really shouldn't take trauma personally. As much as I'd like to why, me this whole thing (and it is so beyond tempting, because seriously, 2016, how did you follow me into 2017 just when things were looking so up?), cancer isn't personal. Why not me? Actually, I'm a good person for this to happen to because I have an amazing support network and I have insurance and paid time off. There are millions of people who don't have access to treatment or insurance or even running water. Why me? Why not me?

Sheryl said journaling really helped her, and I've blogged through so many hard things and great things in my life, I'm going to blog through this even though about twelve people still read Surrender, Dorothy. I'm going to do it for me, just as I started it for my daughter, WHO IS THE SAME AGE THAT I WAS WHEN MY MOM HAD CANCER AND HOLY SHIT THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I HAVE FEARED WOULD HAPPEN THIS WHOLE TIME SO MUCH I EVEN WROTE A BOOK ABOUT IT WHAT THE FUCK?

Sorry - sometimes the voice in my head is super annoying. That's the voice that wants to play the victim and say I told you so, life, I knew this would happen, I was born doomed, but that is not true and even if it were I'm not that Rita anymore who always finds the worst in everything and then makes out with the worst because the worst is so damn sexy.

This is the new 2017 Rita, as Steph said, who is made up of the eating disorder 1992 Rita and the anxiety-disorder-crazed early 2000s Rita and all the other Ritas who came before those two. 2017 Rita is RESILIENT, DAMMIT and is thus going to blog this stream-of-consciousness bullshit and have a Coke and a smile and shut the fuck up because ruminating WILL NOT HELP.

Onward.