January 29, 2017

I have neglected to mention that the comment part of my blog does not work.  If you try to comment and can't it is not because you have done anything wrong.

There is one imunotherapy infusion and five days of radiotherapy left.  Treatment ends February 3.  After that it is a matter of waiting and seeing.  Starting mid-February side effects should first begin to decline.  Some side effects will be permanent.  Some will disappear completely.  Others will decline partially but not completely.  These latter vary greatly from one person to another in the degree to which they disappear.  It typically takes a year to know how it will turn out for any given individual.  Beginning in June I will get a quarterly PET scan to see if anything has returned.  One of the oncologists remarked that between my response to treatment and to side effects I was one of their "prize patients".  I commented that the prize hog at the county fair gets a blue ribbon but she said they hadn't developed any such formal award for prize patients.  

I once worked with someone who was a mountain climber.  He pioneered a new route up Mt. Everest and was on the first team to ever climb Great Trango Tower.  He commented that doing things like that was not so much a matter of summoning great resolve as it was a matter of taking the next step, and the next step,

The cards, emails, etc I have received from friends, neighbors and fellow sangha members have been encouraging and supportive.  After going in for treatment a number of weeks you begin recognizing fellow pilgrims in the waiting rooms and corridors of cancer land.  With little nods and greetings you acknowledge each other.  In an era when there is rather too much of building walls it is soul soothing to experience people reaching out.  I'm reminded of an oft quoted line by Ram Dass "We're all just walking each other home."