Christmas

the last day of radiation today was Christmas.

Christmas Day brings squeals of delight, immediate bounty, the heart's desire manifested in the real.

and the present of the completion of this treatment is continuation, all of the above and more, additional years.

but that's not why today was Christmas. a lot of the presents I can't open yet...being able to sing again, being able to taste again, being able to watch a tennis game again (and see both courts). lessening fatigue, and each day's healing accruing, rather than sitting up on the canvas only to be knocked back down again.

Christmas Day is the symbol of the rebirth of the year, is remembered for one particular birth. and the end of radiation can certainly be seen as a rebirth in my life. I feel a gestalt with the world, more of a solid part of the ongoing flow of people's lives, rather than the concern of preserving life itself.

but that's not it, either.

we celebrate on the longest night, the shortest and coldest day, of the year...it would be great if we did that because even on that day, life holds all of its promise, and there is no less reason for faith on a hard day than on a good day.

I don't think that's it, though.

I think we celebrate on the 21st...ish...because we damn well need to. because without something really great to look forward to on that day...it just seems like a global case of PMS.

I think it's genius to put the big holiday of the year right smack dab where we need it most.

that's why the end of six weeks of radiation today seems like Christmas to me. because this is the most faded out I'm going to feel. this is as bad as the side effects get. this is the shortest, dimmest day.

and the very nature of that is the cause for celebration. no more one step forward, 1.7 steps back. the sun will increase on every day...predictions of how much how fast vary, but it is certain to be just so. soon, I'll be again able to sing all the songs no one wants to hear...Feelings...There's 18 Wheels on a Big Rig...The Strawberry Roan...Don't Wait Up for the Shrimp Boat, Mama, I'm Coming Home with the Crabs...

and there was mixed rejoicing throughout the land...

no more trying to fill a sieve. everything I pour into my health is going to stay there.

it's a blessed comfort on the shadowiest day of the process.

a sort of comfort that pisses me off has come from everyone who, now that I'm coming to the end, started telling me the radiation horror stories they've heard through the grade school game of telephone line.

"my brother said that his doctor said that 75% of all patients who undergo radiation don't complete the treatment...and that 97% require the feeding tube"

so...you're telling me this...now?

Dr. Davis, who is not afraid to use actual words, said that virtually 100% of the people in his program complete. and that once completed, the treatment has "a very high success rate." and that after five years, the chance of recurrence is "virtually zero"

he's the guy who said, "most of the time, we can get this thing."

sidebar...language inflation in general pisses me off.

I define language inflation as the use of a word of lesser value to do the work of a word of greater value.

"well, how was your first trip on the time machine?" "interesting"

interesting?? there is enough of interest in any three snowflakes to keep a team of geniuses spellbound for the rest of their lives. how about amazing, nonpareil, fascinating, singular?

it isn't cooler. it isn't safer. live, feel, say, dammit.

Christy uses the word "fabulous" constantly. people in her world are often "excellent." when things are unbelievable to her, she calls them unbelievable.

occasionally, "so how was the drive over?" "it was fabulous!" but ya know what? I like that worlds better than "Spock Talk".

Dr. Davis uses the potent words. no stagflation there. and it gives me a lot of hope. but some of that hope is hoping that he's giving fair value dollar for dollar...not using "virtually zero" when a truer truth would be, "pretty darn good".

(by the way, PMS in my private vocabulary is short for "Pretty Much Sucks". it gives me access to a demi-universally understood term)

but the point way back there was: I'm the luckiest guy who ever ran this particular gauntlet. it is much much worse for many many people, and only this bad for not very many at all.

it helps that we were only focusing on one side of the neck. also, the docs and techs seem to think that I have a real resistance to the radiation, due to genetics and health habits and such.

little of that falls outside of the category of luck, to me.

I just hope that I don't generate genetically advantaged, healthy living strengthened cancer cells as well. I hope they're slackers. beatniks. Gen-X-ers. I hope they've spent the last six weeks going, we just want to live, but it's too much damn trouble. I hope they've been reading Sartre.

I hope they've been little Redd Foxx cells, crying out, this is it, Elizabeth, it's the big one!

I'll take the karma.

I brought Dr. Davis' and Dr. Nemechek's staffs full sugar lisamade chocolate chip cookies to celebrate.

they gave me a pin in commemoration. it says...courage.

in the misty mist or the dusky dusk...though others have displayed far more than I had to...I'll take the pin too.

kathy took a picture of it...I'll try to post it.