No, you can’t sir!

I failed to publish this post on the day I wrote it, Memorial Day, so the order of this and Burning Woman are inverse. I am eight sessions in, of thirty-three, with the radiation therapy process, and so far so good.  Each weekday morning I am greeted by the A-Team (Amanda, Arline & Adrian) at the Texas Oncology Radiation ward, where they have me lie down on a sheet spread on the gurney which is placed atop the special mold made at the onset of this process a few weeks ago.  They move me into place by adjusting the sheet underneath me, calling out numbers to one another as they align me with the machine and markings on my body.  Once in place they leave the room and go to a separate one with monitors to watch over the targeted radiation process. I consider it my six week, daily meditation routine, so at this point I close my eyes and begin a Dr. Zhang meditation/visualization exercise, envisioning myself in a pleasant nature setting, albeit with music (always a differe...

It's like having the sun rise and set continuously, repeatedly, inside the upper left quadrant of my torso for five consecutive days, followed by two glorious days of dark eclipse.  Nightly I wake with a dryness in my throat and mouth that makes no sense considering how much water I consume throughout the day and well into the nighttime.  Slowly cooking, from the inside out: the skin red and rash, only in the quadrant, showing evidence of radiation. (Gratefully, there is no internal pain associated with the treatments.)  The end is in sight however, with only six treatments left to endure. By next week's end I will ring another bell to signify the culmination of these powerful blasts to any remaining cancer cells.   Last week I got to take a short break from daily radiation, having two sessions in one day, followed by one the next morning.  The rest of the week I was tending to a lovely new puppy in my life, Spokey, who lives just an hour or so down the roa...

The silver linings of the rollercoaster cancer ride keep showing up: my PET scan was beautifully clean; no further lymph node removal is needed! I'm still riding the high on this piece of information, spoken to me a few days ago, by the new doctor in my life.   (I wanted to pick him up and swing him around the little exam room, but his feet would've knocked Francine over.)  I kept my cool, somewhat, and only gushed about my relief over this good news, and I'm pretty sure I was jumping up and down. Just before meeting Dr. Nuesch, I experienced white-coat syndrome.  My pulse rate was as high as you'd want it to be if you were engaging in aerobic exercise (though I felt fine, desiring to run out the door, and all the way to Terlingua).  Francine was probably close to pulling out her phone again and playing more Sanskrit chanting music to try and help me calm down.  The nurse had me deep breathing, and after a bit the pulse rate went from 130 down to 110, up again, ...

The surgery went smoothly.  Three surgeries technically-removal of the port, lumpectomy and sentinel node biopsy.  My wonderful friend Carolyn kindly picked me up before sunrise and stayed with me throughout the morning (until I was wheeled from our pre-surgery room and into surgery) and the amazing team at St. David’s made the ordeal easy and practically pleasant.  The first thing I recall upon coming to from the anesthesia, was the good news that the margins around the lump and lymph nodes were clear! I recuperated at Carolyn’s the next few days, complete with sweet feline TLC from Reilly, Nigel and Percy and was amazed at the lack of pain from the bandaged body parts.  There was physical and mental discomfort, sure, mainly from the drainage tube, but overall I was in better shape than I’d anticipated. Riding high on the thought of being cancer free, the ensuing post-surgery days were joyful.  I was grateful to be able to go to the long-awaited magical outdoor...

Raw, discombobulated, hopeful, uncertain.  I've been vacillating between these states since recovering from the final chemotherapy rollercoaster ride of side effects almost three weeks ago now.  Physically I am quite good, albeit weak and slightly fragile, and mentally I am well enough, but part of me feels as if I'm waking from a long slumber and the world is slightly askew from when I knew it last.  As if this has been a strange, enduring dream and I'm waking from it with an altered worldview that has me questioning where to go from here.   I'm identifying closely with the fledgling Carolina Wren chicks I was so lucky to witness, just yesterday; their wild-eyed, open-beaked squeals, their erratic, hopping/low flying eventual progress from near the birdhouse my landlords have placed in a well-protected spot, close to the house, out to the wooded area beyond the backyard fence...quite a long and arduous journey for the little guys.  Over the course of the d...

Last Friday's final session was a happy ending to a celebratory week, one that welcomed my youngest brother, Brian, to town for a short visit before returning Mom back to Kansas just after the ringing of the bell at Texas Oncology, which was the best two-minute party I've ever had.   Complete with many radiant faces, confetti-throwing and congratulations all around, it was the perfect culmination of Mom's time here in Austin, caring for her eldest daughter, and also the commencement of a new chapter for her, and for our family: returning to our hometown and into her own, new nest, in a retirement community just a few miles from the house we've called home since 1983, when we moved as a family of eight, from Kearney, Nebraska to Clay Center, Kansas.  My siblings are faced with the lion's share of work required to clear the house and prepare it for sale, and I'm sorry I won't be able to be there to help, also a little sad I won't be able to see it one last...