Waiting to Exhale

spring's mixed messages

There’s a poster in the bathroom of the radiation oncology waiting room that makes me wonder if the person who chose it has a sense of humor. Like CT scans and MRIs, left breast radiotherapy requires that you hold your breath. A technique called Deep Inspiration Breath Hold (DIBH) expands the lungs and pulls the heart away from the chest wall, protecting the heart from unwanted radiation.

When you are lying there, tits up, with your arms gripping bars overhead and your feet rubber banded together and told not to move (even though every part of you feels itchy), it can be more than a little stressful. IYKYK.

As luck would have it, I developed a spring cold, which hit me hard the first week of radiation. I’d heard that radiation was quick and easy. It takes longer to get undressed than to have treatment, people said. And while that is ostensibly true, this is an exercise in precision. That means you have to be perfectly placed on the table, scanned and sometimes rescanned to make sure the placement is correct (remember, we are protecting the heart) and sometimes there are x-rays. Each of these requires holding your breath.

They have handy colored lights on the ceiling to guide you and the green light is what you’re going for. If the light turns orange, you’ve held too much breath.

A Wizard of Oz-like voice from outside the room says, in a friendlier-than-Wizard of Oz-tone, (radiation techs are very nice and very encouraging) “Whenever you’re ready, breathe in.”

So I do, watching the green light to ensure my breath is holding steady.

When whichever procedure they are doing is over, they say, “Now breathe.”

Though that should come as a relief, the first time I heard it, I found this instruction confusing. “You mean exhale?” I asked, exhaling in order to ask the question. “Yes, breathe," they said encouragingly.

I get it.

As instructed, I’d practiced for this during the month prior to radiation, holding my arms above my head, inhaling and mentally singing the song Yesterday. During that time I realized there’s a Beatles song for many aspects of this “cancer journey.” I’m So Tired, Let it Be, When I’m 64, I’ll Follow the Sun…

A week or so after we returned from Mexico, the bloat started to recede, the side effects from various and sundry treatments subsided and I felt pretty good.

So good in fact that I realized that since starting chemo in December, I’d been half the man I used to be. I decided to make the most of my return to near-normalcy.

The Seattle spring weather was predictably up and down, but on sunny days I went running a few times, played pickleball, shelled fava beans and threw a party with spring salads and St. Germain spritzes, and braved the crowds to see the cherry blossoms at the University of Washington.

“It’s nice to see you looking and feeling good,” remarked J (who was careful to qualify that I hadn’t looked bad before, just not like my usual spunky self).

A few days after the Happy Hour I’d organized with boot camp friends, my cold made its presence known. Then, one Happy Hour friend, followed by a second, and then a third announced that they’d tested positive for COVID. Thankfully, I repeatedly tested negative, but it was getting harder and harder to just breathe.

I’ve never been a big fan of spring. I find it fickle and cruel and hard to dress for.

Just when you settle in to enjoying sunshine and blossoms and eating and drinking light, lemony things, you get assaulted by a harsh wind, unrelenting rain, and those nasty respiratory diseases that start circulating with a vengeance. You have to grab fleeting moments of bliss because you never know when the weather will turn or you’ll come down with something.

Needless to say, having trouble breathing added an additional level of discomfort to the radiation experience. To cheer me up as I sat masked and congested in the radiation oncology waiting room, J suggested we go ahead and purchase tickets for our next trip to Portugal - his way of reminding me that at some point all my troubles will seem so far away (hopefully, not when I’m 64, but sooner).

I love and appreciate my husband very much.

It’s so nice to know we’ll be summering soon.

By the end of that first week, radiation felt less daunting. They cranked the music up in the treatment room, I had one mercifully short day with no scans or x-rays, just treatment! and I was, as the lore promised, in and out in 20 minutes.

I consoled my sick little self during the rainy days that followed by appreciating the beauty of the gorgeous mugs my neighbor Amy made for me. They were the perfect vessels for the copious cups of tea I consumed. (To see more of Amy’s beautiful creations, check out her Etsy shop or her Instagram).

Amy is steady and serene. We met when our kids (now 25) were in preschool. Over the years, she, her husband, and I have weathered a number of serious illnesses, taking neighborhood walks on the road to recuperation.

Our friendly acquaintance has grown into a true friendship, based on sharing the sometimes bittersweet experiences of long-term partnership during midlife, when life can fuck with you like an unexpected spring storm.

I found more solace in reading. Now that I’m over my reading slump, I’ve plowed through a number of books recently. But the perfect comfort book when you are tossing and turning and coughing and your lower back aches because your hips are tight from lack of exercise may be The Kamogawa Food Detectives.

Today is a beautiful sunny day. If I were not still coughing up a storm, I would have attended the Silent Reading party at the Sorrento Hotel organized by

Christopher Frizzelle

I’d been looking forward to this event for a long time and am sad to have missed it and miss finally meeting Christopher. But, in addition to not wanting to spread germs, I didn’t want to be that person at a silent event.

The Best Thing I Cooked This Week

Armenian Chicken and Lentil Soup with Dried Apricots

After last week’s blaze of glory, I’ve barely been able to function this week. I had grand plans to share the recipe for a fava bean potato pesto salad, but the one I used isn’t available online and I am too exhausted to type it out here. I’ve seen several riffs on this concept and I encourage you to try one.

In a burst of desperate energy, I pulled it together to make our family’s go-to when one of us has a bad cold. Armenian Chicken Soup (or ACS as we call it) is tangy and satisfying and curative.

I first shared the recipe in a Slice of Midlife blog that ran in November 2011. Though I enjoyed this trip down memory lane (and realize I haven’t changed much in almost 13 years), you can jump to to the end of the post, where you will find the recipe.

Remember that you can easily find all of the recipes I’ve shared here.

Happy Easter!