Done!
Yesterday was my last day of radiation. Yay! Now it is just aromatase inhibitors for a decade.
I have a very mild radiation "burn" - looks mostly like a very mild sunburn and a bit of swelling. There was only one day in which I was fatigued in a way I couldn't pin on life, in general (shoving around 100 lb boxes of books, cleaning years of grime off the walls of my new office, helping lead a 5-day/7 hours a day workshop series . . .).
All in all, I've gotten off remarkably lightly, for which I am grateful.
During the radiation dry run and each the 16 days of radiation, I added a section to a drawing as a meditative practice - turning the inherently physically harmful radiation process into an emotionally healthier process. I finished it yestarday morning and gave a copy to each of the radiology staff who had watched it develop.
Now I have 2.5 hours extra a day! (I'm about to lose them to an increased workload - but that's another story.)
Here's the finished product:
The radiation target/alignment marks are 6 purple + signs (4 in the scrollwork section (the radiation field), and 2 in the bridge-like structure), and the vertical-ish frame of the scrollwork section. (I had my daughter take a picture of the marks after I assumed the radiation position, and then traced them onto the paper. Until I looked at the picture I didn't realize the 4 marks formed a horizontal line, since they aren't horizontal when I stand up.) If you divide the scroll area into 9 boxes (with an extra fraction of a column of boxes at the at the left), the marks form the box corners between the top and second row of boxes. The two left-most box corners are the actual targets - the right two marks in that row are alignment marks (one on either side of a small tattoo in the center of my chest). The light burn is remarkably precisely contained within the field (even more remarkable, since I had penciled in the top line, not realizing wha the burn would look like).
The crane at the bottom is a gift from my radiation oncologist (sitting on a shelf in my office). I filled it in on the anniversary of Nagasaki, since it was inspired by the story of the child in Hiroshima who came down with leukemia following the bombing of Hiroshima. She tried to make 1000 paper cranes in order to have a wish granted (Japanese legend). The stories are unclear as to whether she finished before her death - or her classmates finished after she died.
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They molded a "pillow" so I would be in exactly the same position every day. A body mask woudl be considerably larger and more complex. (I'm relatively small - but all of the women getting radiation the same time as I did were considerably larger than I am.)
Zentangle is designed to be created stroke by stroke, so it doesn't require talent - just an ability to make one stroke at a time. 
Thanks for the song! I hadn't heard it before.
I understand what you are saying about 'getting off lightly' but this was not an easy journey, so pat your self on the back and take another step forward!
