Lughnasa and the Lughnasa Moon
Monday gratefuls: Radiation. Dr. Gilroy. The sabbatical. Too short. Gardening. Bill. Tom. Paul. Yesterday. Exposing their self-understandings. Tender. Still cool. Kate’s sisters and their bi-Sunday zooms. Sarah. Anne. B.J. Oil checks. Weird. The land in Texas. Mary and Mark, as Mary said, my nomadic family. Rigel and Kep on the bed last night. For a while. The working of Claritine.
Got in Ruby. Turned on the a.c. Pegged 55 on the cruise control and wound my down the hill, then south 470 to Lonetree. It will have been a year on August 9th that I had my last radiation treatment. Today I saw Patty, the kind head radiology tech who oversaw my treatments. She remembered me. Is that you, Charlie?\
Yes, it was. I had on my red Los Alamos split the atom t-shirt. We went through the formalities. Co-pay. Urinary and bowel function and symptoms checklist. A nurse took my vitals. 96 O2, 100/65 B.P. Dr. Gilroy came in.
He hadn’t changed. Still slightly tubby, expensive tattersall shirt. Close cropped gray hair. Jovial. Anything bothering you?
An existential question to start with. Thought about mentioning Kierkegaard, but I didn’t. Nope. Not really. Given my Gleason score, staging, my prostatectomy and the recurrence, the radiation and the Lupron, what are my odds of a cure. About 2/3rds, 1/3rd, he said. 1/3rd have a recurrence. We don’t know why. The odds are good, but 1/3rd is a lot of people.
I see. It didn’t rock me this time like it did when Eigner said 60/40 in July. Getting used to the fact that cancer is always going to be a part of my life. Every 3 month psa’s. On and on and on.
Like walking along on a plank bridge over a deep ravine. Every fourth step might break and you’ll fall through. But most don’t. Just keep walking. Oh. Well. O.K.
We got up, didn’t shake hands. Covid. Masks on. I left. In the lobby I hit the hand sanitizer, opened the door, and walked into a bright blue Colorado day.
