Shoshiplatypus

What’s On Your Workdesk this Wednesday?

It’s been a busy week. I haven’t had a lot of studio time this week, what with my radiotherapy and trying to keep up with my cooking. I am keen the keep the freezer well stocked with ready-cooked meals in case the fatigue from the treatment incapacitates me too much.  We are also now well into the apple onslought and the blackberries are coming in thick and fast too, not to mention the rhubarb, so it’s all go in the kitchen department.

More Inkscape capers

I’ve been designing some more cutting files in my spare time – easy to do on the laptop downstairs on the recliner. After seeing Zsuzsa‘s fabulous lino cut stamps last week, I decided to draw a more stylised leaf trail which I can use as a cut shape, a stencil and a mask.

12 x 12 sheet ready for cutting:

These ones are 4 inches tall. I’ve also done a sheet of 6-inch ones.

Here are pictures of the stencil files, including one from the first leaf trail from last week.

I shall be cutting these from the back of a polywallet which is a great cheap source of excellent stencil material – much softer and more durable than acetate, and which also doesn’t blunt the blade of the machine so much.

I’ve also been working on some alphabet sets based on various die sets available.

This is a 12 x 12 sheet of sentiments ready for cutting. I’ve added bounding boxes around each sentiment so that if I want, I can use the negative space as it is, or as a stencil, or as a guide for placing the cut out letters accurately. The one on the left is a standard 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inch card front. I shall be making more pages of sentiments like this. I’ve already designed quite a few others in the past, but need to get them organised on sheets ready for cutting. Some of them are a bit too small.

Embossed photo paper backgrounds

I decided to make a thank-you card for the lovely radiography team (see below) who have been looking after me all week, and I made some backgrounds as I did before, using glossy photo paper and 3-D embossing folders.

First steps – Speckled Egg Distress Oxide Spray spritzed on the inside of a 3-D embossing folder, with a little Black Soot Distress Oxide applied with a blending brush and then spritzed with water and left to dry.

With more colour added, with a warm tone.

With a cooler tone.

I stamped, inked and painted a page of butterflies (also on glossy photo paper), stamping the large ones with Distress Archival ink (Black Soot) and the small ones with various Distress Oxides, and colouring them using a combination of mostly Distress Oxides, some normal Distress inks, and some gold Perfect Pearls.

Not a great success with the spattering. I fussy cut the butterflies, after which I spattered them using Picket Fence Distress Spray Stain.

I made this card, using one of the backgrounds to which I added some gilding wax, and layered up some of the butterflies. The sentiment is a hot foil one done on the ToDo machine. The envelope was stamped and inked with Speckled Egg Distress Ink.

New stash

Nothing earth-shattering – just some new bits and pieces in the equipment department. I got another pack of the Avery Elle clear pouches for my stamp storage. No time to continue with that project just now.

There’s been a bit of discussion lately about reverse tweezers – the ones that you have to squeeze to open, rather than to close, and I thought these were a good idea. I got this pack of two, one straight, the other angled. I like the way they have heat-protective pads on them for your fingers. This will be useful when holding small pieces for heat-embossing.

I got another T-ruler as well, in the hope that this time it would be a decent one. I bought one some time ago but it was slightly bowed and wouldn’t lie flat. I decided to warm it up with my heat tool to see if I could flatten it, and ended up melting it! That useless piece of junk went straight in the bin. The new one is fine, I am glad to say. I also got a new corner rounder punch which will be more useful than my existing one as it has three different sizes of corners.

Some new Sharpie markers – fine black ones to mark up the cutting grids on my recycled DVDs (my Zentangle ones tend to smudge, and my ordinary Sharpies are too thick), and some metallic ones that I’ve been after for a while.

A Tombow Mono Zero eraser for fine work, and a sand eraser which is going to be useful for gently removing any stray foiling when using the ToDo machine. This is tiny – much smaller than I expected! I shall have to be careful not to lose it. Also a couple of rolls of clear duct tape for removing the foil from DVDs, which I hope is going to be easier to handle than my ghastly brown parcel tape.

Finally, I am awaiting the arrival of a set of Misti Creative Corners that I’ve seen being used to great effect with stamp positioning tools.

Kitties

Kitties and boxes. Who knows what this irresistible attraction is? They simply can’t help themselves.

My hubby brought Ruby to show me.

Kitties on my lap. Photos taken by my hubby from his point of view, and by me from mine. They love snuggling up together.

Health Update

Shoshi’s Irradiated!

It’s OK, I’m not actually radioactive, and I don’t really glow in the dark… Maybe I’m radiant! Yes. That’s what it must be. Anyway, I’ve started my radiotherapy (definitely wireless, and definitely the highest fidelity! My subwoofers and tweeters are all performing within normal parameters, you will be glad to hear), with the first session being last Thursday, and the final one later on today. Full details on My Breast Cancer Diary page.

It is an interesting experience. The table was set up for me exactly as the one in my planning session. More high tech stuff, straight out of science fiction! I find it all fascinating.

I had to relax and lie completely still, so that they could shift me around by minute amounts, measuring, writing on me with felt pen, and shining green laser lights at me to get everything lined up before the treatment could begin. They use the tiny tattoos they put on me at my planning session for this. I’m amazed at how accurate all this has to be. I had to hold my breath several times as each burst of radiation passed through my body. This “breath-hold technique” is to put distance between the target area (the breast) and the vulnerable underlying organs (especially the heart), to provide adequate protection from radiation damage. I didn’t feel anything, but as before, my arms went to sleep pretty quickly and it wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it was only temporary. The machine swings around but it does not touch you. It was positioned first on the underarm side of my breast and directed several bursts of radiation, before being swung around to the other side and the process repeated. With each burst, the machine makes a buzzing sound. They told me when to hold my breath for each burst of radiation, counting sometimes from 1 to only 5 or 6 and sometimes up to 14, and all the time I had to keep completely still.

The second treatment was on Friday, which didn’t take as long as the first one as they’d already established a lot of the measurements, and then I had the weekend off, and resumed on Monday. My final treatment will be this afternoon. All through the weekend I didn’t notice any ill effects at all; they said one usually notices skin changes about half way through the course of treatment (similar to severe sunburn), and the worst effects will be at their height about a fortnight after the end of the treatment. I thought it looked slightly more pink after the treatment on Monday, and it felt a bit tender yesterday. They can offer advice on skin care and provide creams but they are happy with my choice of moisturiser for now, and I’ve been applying it twice daily, which should help offset the worst of the damage.

The radiographers are all lovely, and ready for a laugh too. After the first session one of them said to me, “You were great. You can come again!” Lol! When I arrived on that occasion and they asked me whether I was OK with the breath-hold technique, I said it was a doddle – I could hold my breath for a minute if need be – having had voice training I know about breath control. One of them said, “OK, hold your breath now, and we’ll tell you when to start breathing again when you leave.” That would be about half an hour later!! I had to draw the line at that.

The third treatment on Monday wasn’t so comfortable because I was having a bad day with fatigue and a headache, and I found it more difficult to relax and experienced quite a bit of pain in my arms, and the breath-hold was more of an effort. I was also feeling pretty spaced out and brainfogged.

My fourth treatment yesterday was a doddle by comparison, as I was feeling tons better than the day before. Afterwards, they said I coud take some photos of the room and equipment if I wanted, so I did. They said they would take a picture of me on the table for my final treatment. They are all so friendly and kind, and make everything so easy.

Here are the photos I took. This is the table, set up specifically for me. Note the lovely wallpaper covering the cupboards on the far wall. They’ve made an effort to make the room look as nice as possible.

The gap between the small V-shaped projection and the sloping part is where I have to put my bum! It’s pretty uncomfortable until I get settled, and then it’s not too bad. They slide the large red thing up underneath my knees.

The machine itself. The cylindrical thing coming down from the ceiling has sensors on cables that can be pulled down and stuck on you – they did this on my first day but not since.

The whole thing revolves so that they can direct the circular part, which is where the radiation comes from. The flat plates are X-ray machines; they take a couple of images each time before they begin the treatment. The bursts of radiation are done first on one side of the breast, and then the machine revolves around, and they target the other side, so that the whole breast receives the irradiation.

The equipment is lined up with the aid of green lasers which come from a cross-shaped hole in the ceiling above my head – not visible in these photos, but this Internet photo gives an indication.

The radiography team on duty yesterday.

This is one of the back-lit ceiling panels. It really did look as if you were looking through a skylight at some beautiful spring foliage. The trouble is, most of the time the view was obscured by the machine!

This treatment is far preferable to chemo which was horrendous. I am so grateful that I don’t have to endure that particular ordeal again.

Here is my hubby, enjoying his own radiotherapy. A bit more comfortable than mine! (And I wasn’t allowed to take a kitty in with me…)

I have had my TMJ (temoromandibular joint) pain for nearly two weeks now and it’s giving me earache, and it hurts to chew. It’s quite unpleasant. I mentioned it to the radiographer on the first day of my treatment and she said to contact the oncology team if it got any worse. I was sure it was a side-effect of the hormone blocking therapy I am on, which can cause joint and bone pain. I saw one of the radiologists on Monday who said it was unlikely but she’s told me to stop the medication for a while to see if it improves. Why do cancer treatments all make you ill??!! I’m continuing with the jaw exercises while I do my shoulder ones, and it’s a good thing nobody can see me doing them, because I’m flapping my arms around and pulling the most extraordinary faces in the process! Anyone coming in unannounced would certainly be calling the men in white coats.

Have a great week, everybody.