I’ve had a few trips down memory lane lately. I was filling the tank of my parents’ car when I remembered back in the day when gas station attendants actually did that for you! Remember pulling in and saying, “Fill ‘er up?”

Another memory goes back to 2nd McGee, my section of the old MCW dorm at Taylor, when Marilyn–I can’t remember her last name–used to hold out the top of her shirt and sing “Fill my cup, Lord, fill it up, Lord…”

Today I go for my first “fill” after radiation.

I saw Dr. Kouris about ten days ago but opted to wait for the first fill. I was leaving from that appointment to drive to Detroit and we both agreed that it would be best to wait. My skin looks fine but the “wild card” of radiation is an unknown at this point. We can’t tell yet what it did to the chest muscle and if there is scarring of the tissues. What that means is we don’t know what will happen when we resume filling the expander.

To put it in perspective let me share a few of the details: The expander can hold up to 550 cc’s of fluid. (They come in different sizes.) It came with 50 cc’s in place and over the few weeks that we had before I started chemo, we were able to do three 50 cc fills so there is now about 200 cc in place. I never intended to have it completely filled, but had guessed that maybe we would put in another 200 cc. (I’m okay with smaller!)

So I was a little surprised when Dr. Kouris thought that we should only put in 25 cc at a time and extend the intervals to every two weeks. He thought it would be good if we could get in another 100 cc but he wasn’t even totally optimistic about that. Hmmmmm. That’s when he reminded me that radiation was a wild card.

I’m a little worried about pain. I had very little discomfort with the previous expansions but this may be a whole new ballgame as we attempt to stretch (expand) muscle hardened by radiation. By the way, someone compared the process to overdone meat, which is, after all, muscle. Mine has been “cooked” by radiation. Nice visual, huh?

Back to memory lane: I actually don’t remember pulling into gas stations too often and saying “Fill ‘er up.” I was much more likely to ask for $3-5 worth of gas, sometimes even less. That was back in the day when gas cost something like 50 cents a gallon* and we used cash to buy our gas. (Really, it’s true!) Maybe my penny pinching then was prophetic of how it would be in the future when I would be tempted to say “Fill ‘er up” again: I wasn’t concerned about a full tank then and I don’t think I will be now.

Just two bucks please.

*I thought I remembered gas being as low as 39 cents a gallon. I googled it for 1970 and found that it went as low as 36 cents to just under a dollar for a gallon of gas.