On the medical front. I am about to start week five of treatment. Five of eight immunotherapy sessions are over. Nineteen of thirty three radiotherapy sessions are completed. As predicted the side effects of the radiotherapy sessions are cumulative and build as the sessions continue. The prediction is that the side effects will continue increasing and then start to decrease in about five weeks - two weeks after the treatments end. I may soon have to go to opioids for dealing with some side effects. The therapy experience is a real experience of being in the moment. Dealing with today and not getting concerned about tomorrow is crucial to not getting bogged down in wishing things were other than they are.
On the experiential side. I continue being impressed with the quality of care and concern shown by the personnel at the UW Cancer Center. It is helpful to look at my experience as an observer of the experience rather than as the subject of the experience. Being an observer of what you are experiencing helps avoid sinking into the suffering of wanting things to be different than they are. You aim for things to be better but face them as they are not as you might want them to be.
My project for the coming week is to be living less oriented around my treatments. Life goes on and you still are who you were - hopefully more than just a patient. The whole experience may be an opportunity for self exploration. I'm reminded of Rilke's lines, "Now you must go out into your heart/ As onto a vast plain."
I have been reading in various areas. It may be time for me to devote more of my cancer period reading to poetry. Ted Kooser's Winter Morning Walks, the last few books of Jim Harrison's, Rilke's Book of Hours and Eliot's Four Quartets seem like good candidates.
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