Decapitation

Yes, I am going to write about decapitation but not mine, don't worry.  First, a quick update. 

While I have finished with chemo (Yay! Hurrah! Huzzah! etc.), the side effects continue and honestly, that is quite aggravating.  Yes, my doc told me they could last from a week to a year (and then some), but that's not what I heard in my head.  What I heard was, "Usually this is what happens, but YOU are SO unique and SO special that your side effects will stop at once."  After all, she actually told me once that I was a "fine specimen" and another time she said that she was "tickled pink" with how well I was doing and that I was an "overachiever" in the realm of breast cancer.  (Yes, she really talks that way and I love it!)  But alas, I am inside the bell curve concerning side effects so the fun continues.  It isn't awful, in fact it's not that bad, but after seven months I am more than bored with the whole patient thing. 

The current schedule is a non-chemo treatment every three weeks, which began August 30th and will continue through June 2014.  It lasts less than two hours and so far I have no side effects from this type at all.  I just get sleepy because I receive it with Benadryl (via the port) and apparently I'm a lightweight when it comes to these meds.  After getting the sleep I crave, it's all good. 

So, getting back to decapitation...I came across a great study this summer concerning the memory of planaria.  These are flatworms that are used a lot in research labs, and they can regenerate parts of their bodies.  After decapitating planaria, researchers at Tufts found that these flatworms could regenerate not only their heads/brains, but their memories as well.  (If you are wondering how a human could possibly know that a planarian actually had any memories at all,  you are getting off track but I will humor you because I was enthralled...apparently the researchers "trained" the worms to disregard bright light, which they don't like, in order to reach a food source and then off with their heads.  After two weeks the heads/brains regenerated and researchers put them through the same bright light trials to see what they "remembered."  The short version is that within a short period of time the planaria recalled the food source and got to it.)  This made me so happy!  If a worm can get its memory back, that means I can, too!  I often feel like I've lost my head these days so I look forward to regenerating my brain (and other body parts) in the months to come.  

So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart, I shall say that life is good.               -Helen Keller 

PS to all my environmentally sensitive friends out there:  no worms were harmed in the writing of this post, so please direct all complaints to the biologists at Tufts University.