Did You Ever Think Life Was Gonna Be This Way?

I'm just going to say it: I am a puffball, a marshmallow. My face is much rounder and fluffier than an oval shaped face really has any right to be. Look at this:  Here I am, on Mothers Day, with my absolutely gorgeous baby girl. The decision to share the shot in black and white was carefully curated so that you'd notice the smiles, not the delivery mechanism that used to be my face and is now a cartoon iteration of it.  Why is my face so round, you ask, and why can't I get over it? Good questions. Fair questions. Somewhat easy questions, too - at least on the surface.  My face is round and pie-like because of steroids, which I've been gobbling down obediently since the middle of April, when my medical team realized that my pneumonia actually was radiation pneumonitis - a result of radiation treatments I had in February. Just between you and me, I'm getting a little tired of taking them. The steroids, I mean. Don't get me wrong -  I was and AM happy and grateful...

I can see why they used to send people to the dry air of the mountains for "rest cures" related to consumption and whatever else they called conditions that featured craptastic symptoms of lung deterioration. I really get it now.  About a month ago, I was in the hospital for pneumonia, which turned actually to be radiation pneumanitis - a side effect from my radiation treatments in February. They sent me home with oxygen (the giant green metal cylinder kind that made me feel like a helium balloon salesman), and, once we figured out the pneumanitis part, steroids for me to take to help clear my airways and keep them open. And thanks to the fact that I have an awesome medical team and enough bandwidth to manage my care (thanks to my holy host of helpers that include my whole family, various indulgent friends, and so on), I've been weaning my way off of the oxygen and the steroids pretty steadily under my doctor's guidance. Or at least I was, until the last day or two. I...