IN YOUR OWN WORDS PAGE TITLE SIDE EFFECTS OF CANCER TREATMENT BY RAELENE JOHNSON, VOICE VENDOR WHEN I CHOSE TO DO RADIATION AND CHEMO, I didn’t realize the things that I would end up going through. If I had known, maybe I would have chosen differently. I fooled myself into believing I could and would get through my cancer treatment without any real side effects. Now, I’m cancer-free, and I have side effects from the radiation treatment I had in December. That was over five months ago, and my glands are swollen on the left side of my body. I have to go through therapy to work on getting the glands unswollen. If that wasn’t bad enough, my fingernails have been dying and breaking off, and now, the same thing is happening to my toenails. My toenails breaking hurts worse than the pain I’ve felt from my brittle fingernails breaking. I wish my fingernails and toenails would break off all at the same time. Instead, I have to wait weeks for them to change, and these changes are not for the best. It is hard to see all of the negative changes that are happening every day as a result of my treatment. Watching my nails falling out is harder than when I had to shave my head, so I didn’t have to watch as my hair fell out slowly. When I eat, I can taste metal. That means food tastes even worse when I eat with metal utensils. So, for now, plastic utensils are my best friends for eating food with. I do not know for how long I will have to eat with a plastic fork. Cancer and treatment for cancer are very hard on the body. I don’t know what will show up next. Just because I’m not in treatment anymore doesn’t mean cancer side effects will not show up months after the treatment has ended. It seems like cancer keeps telling me, “I’m not done with you, yet!” So, when I get up and wonder what today will bring, I might find some new bad thing happening to me. But I say to myself, “We will deal with it as it comes. At least I’m cancer-free. To keep complaining doesn’t do anything for you. It can’t change anything, so just deal with it because you can’t heal if you stay in dark thoughts.” I’ve found that when you let doubt and fear creep into your mind, it will affect how you deal with treatment and whether or not you’ll get through it okay. I have learned to stay positive through writing about Self. I am grateful that I have the best cancer doctors at the Rocky Mountain Cancer Center. I am hoping that after I lose my fingernails and toenails, nothing else bad will pop its ugly head up. I do know that whatever happens, I will deal with it the same way I have so far — with the best attitude and laughter, by staying at peace from the inside to the outside — letting nothing worry me. I hope that by sharing my story, it can help anyone who is faced with health challenges. You can stay positive to win your fight. Just keep fighting the good fight, because only in light can you win. For me, I will continue going to my cancer docs every six months for checkups, but that is okay. I am alive now, and I plan to be here for a very long time. ■ ACROSS Across 1. Cousin of a herring 5. Film legend Greta 10. Place to enter a PIN 13. Vulcan’s forte 15. Crazy as ___ 16. Glimpse 17. Busy 19. Phone no. add-on 20. Rule in some leases 21. Shows how it happened 23. Oregon’s fourthlargest city 25. Opposite of FF 26. Hot stuff 32. CD follower 35. Gossipmonger 36. In place 37. Attention-getter 39. Makeup artists? 41. Be inclined 42. Burgundy grape 44. Corn pancake of Colombia 46. Bake sale org. 47. Common features of tablets and smartphones 50. Farm layer? 51. Special dress 55. Mathematical curve 60. Crossword constructor’s task 61. Night before 62. 20-sided die, for example 64. Transgression 65. Like a beaver, idiomatically 66. Sawyer of ABC 67. Adjective that happens to describe the number of letters it contains 68. Second-stringers 69. Certain compass pts. DOWN 1. Threw 2. Pay tribute to 3. Fly-catching? 4. Sell off 5. Lass 6. Controversial apple spray (anagram of LARA) 7. Boxer’s wear 8. Ravel composition 9. Unity 10. “Just ___!” (“Hang on!”) 11. Phone message 12. Big Apple baseballers 14. ___ Pacific (Hong Kong airline) 18. Author Allende 22. Hang around for 24. Fanatic 27. Fab Four drummer 28. Vocation 29. Lone Star State sch. 30. Spendable thing that rhymes with “spent” 31. Icelandic epic (anagram of DEAD) 32. Wholly absorbed 33. Cincinnati’s home 34. Waiter’s handout 38. Coffee shop order 40. Cry at an awards ceremony 43. Pop star nickname 45. Aslant 48. Vehicle with caterpillar treads 49. Mecca residents 52. Turkish money 53. Combined 54. De Mille of dance or Varda of film 55. Mexican money 56. Passionate 57. Rip apart 58. Theater box (anagram of LEGO) 59. Offshore 63. Shirt part PUZZLES COURTESY OF STREETROOTS ANSWERS ARE ON PAGE 14 RAELENE JOHNSON. CREDIT: KAREN BEEMAN July 2024 DENVER VOICE 13 PUZZLE COURTESY OF STREET ROOTS, DENVER VOICE’S SISTER PAPER IN PORTLAND, OR PUZZLE COURTESY OF STREET ROOTS, DENVER VOICE’S SISTER PAPER IN PORTLAND, OR
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