Summer and the Radiation Moon Let’s see. Heat waves. Bad ones. The moon landing at 50. 50? And, of course, Send them back! Send them back! I really tried to stop it in the biggest way. Nobody could have tried to stop it harder. Nobody. Consequential. Each of them. I still remember the first time […]
Read the rest of this entry »Archive for July, 2019
Awe
Summer and the Radiation Moon An orange disc slipped up between two cumulus clouds, darkening one and throwing rusty beams on the other, the Radiation Moon. We drove home from MVP. Up Brook Forest Drive. At the curve before Upper Maxwell Creek the moon rise showed itself in the cleft of Shadow Mountain. These vignettes, […]
Read the rest of this entry »This Realm, This Darkness, This Cancer
Summer and the Radiation Moon New workout with Deb. A lighter pace on cardio, less reps. Still challenging. Dave, Deb’s husband and partner at OMTF, had a recurrence of his brain cancer not long after my psa began to rise. He’s had brain surgery already to remove the tumor. Chemo for a year. But, and […]
Read the rest of this entry »My Ancient Spiritual Trail
Summer and the Radiation Moon My friend Rich sees mussar as a metaphysical, not a psychological discipline. It’s soul work, deeper and more consequential than therapy. Over the last year and a half my skeptical view of soul has begun to break up, fade away. First, from the Cosmos and Psyche (thanks, Tom) insight: Skepticism […]
Read the rest of this entry »Not Its Purpose
Summer and the Radiation Moon “We’re a pair.” A phrase often on our lips. Kate loads up her feeding tube with Jevity, tapes it to the bed, and gets most of her calories overnight while sleeping. I go to bed two or three times a day trying to quiet my stomach, hoping it will be […]
Read the rest of this entry »Summer and the Radiation Moon Yesterday. Sleepy, stomach upset, et alia. Stayed in bed, got up, had some cereal while Kate and Ruth were at the grocery store. Back to bed. Afternoon. Ruth and I spent a good time in the loft talking about haiku, wondering when we’d each get back to oil painting, her […]
Read the rest of this entry »Half Way
Summer and the Radiation Moon 18 fractions absorbed. 180 minutes, exactly three hours under the watchful iris of the Cyber Knife. Roughly 3500 cGys of the total 7000 cGy* prescription. This is over half-way. 18/35ths. Hard to separate out causality. Does my occasional fatigue come from the radiation? The Lupron? Indolence? What’s causing my crampy […]
Read the rest of this entry »Oof
Summer and the Radiation Moon Hoo, boy. Gonna be hard. Gut felt twisty, gassy last night. Painful, too. Bowels ornery. Lost three pounds on Wednesday. These are the only frank side effects I’m feeling (oh, and the fatigue), but they are plenty. If they never move on from this intensity, it will be a strained […]
Read the rest of this entry »Turbulence
Summer and the Radiation Moon Looks like the ride’s going to have turbulence. I feel much better than I did Sunday and Monday, but I still have a jangly feeling, my stomach has become unpredictable, and my bowels want complete and rapid elimination of any thing I throw down there. Also, fatigue. I feel tired, […]
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22
Summer and the Radiation Moon 22 fractions absorbed. 13 to go. Bed bug means I won’t be ending on August 6th. August 7th. Two weeks plus three days and I’ll have the full 7000 cGy of photons. This week’s been difficult. I’ve tried various strategies for managing my ouchy gut. Anti-nausea meds. Zofran. Miralax. Immodium. […]
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