Self portraits

I finished my last round of chemo this week. The nurses gave me a certificate, (which I don't know how I feel about really - frame it? not so much...) , and blew bubbles at me, and sang a cute song that made me smile, and I avoided the ritual of hitting the gong that is right outside the door and sounds like a death knell to me. The idea of the gong is that when your chemo treatments are done you strike it once for each round you endured but the whole thing made me wildly uncomfortable and fortunately for me it didn't come up. I slipped out with my friend and walked right by it.

I have been unloading today emotionally, it has been ranging between weepy sobs of relief that it's done and anger at having to do it all and a small burst of cleaning fueled by the frustration with everything in my life that's been on hold this year. Very small bursts.

I also pulled a bunch of pictures off of my phone today. I take pictures of myself often. It's been a way to cope with the changes and to try to get used to how I look now, and a tiny way of still photographing regularly even when I don't feel like myself. Also, when I feel wretched, I force myself to smile, and I take a picture, and I send it to someone, to try to convince them or maybe just myself that I'm all fine and hunky dory, thank you very much. Fake it till you make it, has more or less been my approach.

Some of the pictures are on flickr... and this is a peek at the set, but there are comments for many of the pictures explaining what was going on each day.