I have stopped working on Thursday. I am not feeling that good at this point. The general expectations are that I will be home for at least two months, as
one keeps feeling even worse after rads end, for maybe three weeks
which would put me at New Years for the worst point. The rate the of recovery after that is very individual, and I hope that mine is on the faster side.

The dizziness spells are quite common and I am quite weak and tired. All the radiation side effects have kicked in, some worse than the others. My skin is getting quite burned and red, so I was given a prescription burn cream. The worst part is by far at this point taste loss. I can not feel sweet or salty anymore, and the other ones are deteriorating rapidly. I have never had a great appetite, and this is making eating even more challenging. How am I going to get to 3000cal when food tastes either bad or at best, bland? I am quite worried about this, as weight loss is very dangerous.

I am also pretty bummed out about the upcoming holidays. To cut the long story short, I did not receive any local invitations for Thanksgiving this year. This would hurt at any point, but it feels especially bad now that I am sick.
I did receive two invitations from friends out of town, but I am in no condition to travel far. I have been here in US for 12 years, and I would either spend this holiday with a BF/family if I was in a relationship, or with friends when single. Whenever it was with friends, I would always invite some friends I knew had nowhere to go to come with me to wherever I was going. So it feels really bad than now nobody is doing that for me now when I am in no condition to organize things myself. To be fair, probably about half of my local friends are traveling out of town to be with their families. But not all of them are.

I have always been a sensitive person, easily hurt (ESFJ for those into Meyer-Briggs) and the illness has made that worse. I do get hurt and cry very easily these days. But some of my local friends have gone MIA in the last two months, since I have recovered enough from the surgery not to need constant help. Some have been and continue to be amazing help, and I am so grateful for them. But some, especially the girl I considered to be my best friend here locally, have either completely disappeared or reduced the contact to a couple of text messages in the past two months, including my birthday. The whole situation is especially striking when contrasted to amazing support I have been receiving from out-of-town friends. My out of town friends, a lot of YLFers I have never even met personally and some people from a different forum have been incredible and I am so grateful to you all. I guess I just need to learn to adjust my expectations towards some of the local friends and emotionally distance myself from those who have hurt me the most.