AbsurdBeats

Cancer requires stuff.

If you’re getting chemo, then there’s a good chance that you’ll need something for your head: wigs, scarves, hats—something to cover you and keep you warm.

Happily, I will not be getting chemo, but my particular surgery and the radiation has required me to buy:

• sports bras (aka cheap compression bras): to keep the girls in place
• saltines & ginger ale: to deal with post-surgical nausea
• Aquafor: to deal with the “skin irritation” (aka burns) from the radiation
• hydrocortisone cream: to deal with the “skin irritation” (aka itching) from the radiation
• cheap undershirts: to protect my clothes from the Aquafor and hydrocortisone cream
• aluminum-free deodorant: presumably to somehow not mess with the radiation
• fragrance-free soap: presumably to avoid further skin irritation
• cloth masks with filter inserts: Strictly speaking, this is more about the corona virus than the cancer, but since I’ll be commuting into Manhattan every day for four weeks to get zapped, I wanted something that would be both more environmentally-friendly and more effective than surgical masks. (The clinic will still give me a surgical mask to wear instead of my cloth one, but that’s on them.)

My radiation oncologist also suggested I use ratty old bras, since “you’re not getting them clean” after all of the creams; since I already have those, however, that’s not a required buy.

Again, had I needed chemo, I’d probably have had to buy even more stuff, to deal with the nausea (for the tummy) and the effects of nausea (for the throat and mouth), and things I haven’t even considered, and won’t consider, because, honestly, I don’t have to, and this is already enough.

So, yes, I am learning *so much* from this cancer; I would have preferred to have remained ignorant.