After four surgeries--excising two benign lumps, one cancerous lump, and four lymph nodes--I'm still intact and feeling fabulous. How lucky is that?

It's a little embarrassing, but my sore arm turned out to be my old tendon problem, not a lymph system backup. But it's no wonder I panicked, after the four-page single-spaced article I was given on the umpteen ways I was vulnerable.

I was just enjoying this piece of road in which all my tough decisions had been made and I could just go with the program, when my right arm puffed up with lymphedema.

I've lost count of the number of times that people who care about me have said, "You are so brave!" It's a nice thing to say, so I don't find fault with it, but I know better, and, at least this time, I'm not just being hard on myself. Take a look at my options:

Last Sunday when I went dancing, a friend I often see there, learning of my radiation adventure, asked, "Can you see through walls?" "Not yet," I replied, "but I can see through you." The split second between his startled response and his getting the joke was pure pleasure.

I don't know what happened to me my first day of radiation, but today, Day 2, I was just fine. Go figure. Maybe it helped that I imagined myself a Bluehead Wrasse afloat on the elevated table in the semi-darkened room.

My first of thirty-three radiation treatments--six zaps of maybe one to three seconds each--didn't hurt at all, just like everyone assured me. I didn't feel anything until about an hour after I got home.

Hey, the second simulation wasn't so bad. All that worry and despite rotator cuff injuries, it didn't bother me at all to have my arm over my head for an hour or so. I'd practiced for a month and it paid off. I'm even beginning to get used it the whole strange business, although the actual radiation room is even more intimidating than the simulation measurement room.

Today I experienced the first of two "simulations"--position and marking for future radiation--followed by a CT--Cat--scan. I dreaded the first but not the second, and as often happens, I had my anxieties reversed.

This novel about breast cancer, friendship between women, and the seaside at Glouchester, Massachusetts, reads well but does not ring true for me on all those levels.