First Chemo Today. It apparently went well.

First they conducted Lila's daily radiation treatment, which apparently is always complicated by the need to get into and under the "masque of immobility," upon which are drawn out the target areas for the radiation devices. Tumors apparently are a very precisely targetable phenomenon. So the whole idea is to keep her immobile. I mentioned she's claustrophobic? (I told her when she's done with it, I want her to send the masque to me. I'll put it on the other pillow at night.)

Thence on to the chemo lab. I mentioned she's taking three chemicals: two to try to interfere with the dna of the cancerous cells, and one to try to dry up the ability of the tumors to create new blood supplies. The latter, the name of which escapes me for the moment, required that she sign a release based on the plausible possibility that such an effect could have disastrous consequences if it obtruded on a healthy, major blood vessel, or organ, for instance. She signed. That was the one they administered first.

They'd told Lila that the first administration of the drugs would take some several hours or more. That's because they administer them in series, not contemporarily. She brought a vid-player her son loaned her for the event, and a movie to watch. But she said there was too much going on to be able to attend to the narrative of the film. The clinic staff monitored her closely, she said. The chemical cocktail is pretty toxic. They also gave her an anti-nausea drug, because nausea is the number one reported side effect of these treatments. They kept her under close observation during the whole treatment.

Lila's begun to inquire into the availability of governmentally sponsored vs. black-market weed. Pot (well, the psycho-active component of it, THC) is also a well-known prophylactic against chemo-induced nausea. Government pot, from the farm in Mississippi, just north of Baton Rouge, is legendary. I've never tried it, however, and I believe this to be an unacceptable lacuna in my otherwise nearly universal pharmacopoeia of "Weed. My family name derives from the ancient plant taxonomy for hemp, after all.

We only talked for a matter of a few minutes. One or two of her kids were coming over, and she'd taken one of her pain-pills, and so we rang off. Too little time. But that's the story of our love, entire.

I am a slave to a Window: The IM window always open on the bottom line of my computer linking me with Lila's computer compels my attention any time I have been away and return. Lately, my worst times are when I return to find the fuukin Window blinking blue, meaning she sent me a message I wasn't here to answer my Lila when she called, cuz she always calls me to tell me it's okay to call her at home. We have elaborate telephonic protocols, designed to ensure that I do not call her at an inopportune moment, viz, her family. It has always added a certain 'frisson' to the proceedings. Less so, these days...