December 23, 2012

• A holiday greeting

  ‘Tis the season once again.  How fast it sneaks up on us!  I’ve planned nothing and done nothing in that regard, so I guess that’s pretty much what I can expect.

   

  What I CAN do is to extend a holiday greeting to you, my Xanga and Facebook friends, some of whom are (or were at one time, or have become) also friends in what we in this computer and internet age term “real life”.

   

  I am getting old now, and the health of the body which I once took so much for granted is deserting me at what seems a frightening rate.  About nine months ago I was diagnosed with prostate cancer – a common ailment, it turns out, of older men.  If you must have cancer, prostate cancer is one of the better cancers to get, as it is slow-growing and gives you more time to get your affairs in order.  It also has one of the higher cure rates if it is caught before it has metastasized outside the prostate itself.

   

  After some deliberation, I chose to have external radiation therapy.  It seemed a no-brainer, actually, between doing nothing and waiting to die on the one extreme, and having the prostate surgically removed on the other extreme, with the surgery’s attendant higher risks of impotence and incontinence. 

   

  The therapy consisted of 44 trips to the local cancer clinic, every weekday for about 9 weeks, where I changed into a gown, walked down a long hall, and was slid halfway into a large machine similar to an MRI machine.  I was first scanned, then subjected to about 4.5 minutes daily of highly concentrated radiation.  The whole time in the machine occupied about 15 minutes and was completely painless, and the entire process from arrival to departure was slightly less than an hour.  After the first few visits I started napping while the radiation procedure was going on.  The hospital staff was wonderful, and I got a free lollipop each day.  I actually began to look forward, in a certain strange way, to my daily visits.  They provided some structure for my day and got me out of the house, and the people there were nice. 

   

  Nevertheless it was a marathon.  And radiation, concentrated though it may be, destroys normal cells as well as cancer cells, so despite the painlessness of the treatment itself there are side effects.  In most cases they are manageable, and could be described as inconvenient more than debilitating.  The effects of radiation are cumulative, and the side effects get worse as time goes on, but at the same time they’re supposed to go away or at least get better after the conclusion of the radiation treatments, which for me was about a week ago.  We shall see.

   

  I won’t go into detail about the side effects, except to say that fatigue is one of the primary and more debilitating ones.  I’ve always been a relatively low-energy person, but the combination of older age and radiation has given new meaning to the term.  I’ve taken to falling asleep pretty much anywhere and at any time of day or night – in my kitchen chair while reading a book, or in my computer chair while reading an e-mail.  I can pass several peaceful hours sound asleep in such positions, with my head lolling about on my neck but otherwise somehow remaining upright and in the chair.

   

  Tonight I had an odd dream.  There was a young man whose head and one arm had been intentionally severed from the rest of his body.  He was conscious and could communicate.  He was being “worked on” in some manner by a medical person of some sort.   It seemed to be an ongoing treatment, in which his head would be reattached to the rest of his body following his treatment each day, but then the next day he would go through the entire elaborate procedure all over again.  When I asked how this detachment and reattachment of his head each day was possible, I was told cryptically that it was volunteers like me who made it possible for him.  I could only assume that my contribution was somehow connected to the pain I felt in my neck each time I awoke from one of my naps in the kitchen chair or desk chair.

   

  And so it goes.  As I said, my 44 radiation treatments were finished about a week ago, and now I wait to see if the side effects will go away and if the cancer has been eliminated from my body.  I also wait, of course, to see what life will bring my way next.  As my late mother grew increasingly fond of saying, “Old age ain’t for sissies.”  It’s very true.

   

  Happy holidays to each and every one of you.  Whether or not you bask this season in the glow of good health and family conviviality, remember that we are ALL connected in mysterious but profound ways.  For my part, I love you, and am happy to count you among my friends. 

  • 1:10 pm
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