excerpts from a letter to Dr. Gore

God's own morning light, reaching through little pockets of night holding court in my room

soon to be the shadows in the day that give it shape.

I apologize for the length of this in advance...I will try to be concise and relevant. but you have asked me, I think, to ask you not only the questions one asks one's Doctor in charge, but maybe also some wider ones when I have them

I am breathing comfortably. I am increasing my sphere of activity. using the walker to get around the house, when the natural supports aren't even better. the microphone trial last night was unbelievable great...going to try to use it again today. eating great, oxygen on 13 liters, considering since I'm almost always 95-96 on my O2 reader seeing what a little less would be like. wanted to get through last night with no Dilaudid bolus, just the basal rate (very low, .15 I'm thinking?)...maybe I wasn't asleep as long at a stretch, but never uncomfortable breathing...

so...last night...maybe a little more of my coming in and out of sleep was just excitement.

I am just starting to understand the necessity of the difference between Palliative care, and what would be the term, actions with healing and curing at the center. I guess what nobody wants is a patient who isn't clear which to receive...who was focused on the Transition to death while the medical team is focused on the curative measures, however limited.

it comes up for me, now. when I couldn't catch a breath, I didn't know how much harder I wanted things to get, and didn't know they could be much easier.

now they are much much easier. I don't feel like I am maintaining thanks to ever increasing drug uses. but there is, short of the everyday miracle, not much thought about cure...

I was expressing to Nancy Meyer, who is a white tornado and the perfect addition to the present team, my curiosity about the fluid in the pericardium, how quickly it may or may not be returning (feels fine), and what an x-ray or scan might reveal about the amount the tumor is pressing, whether radiation got us any shrinkage, what if so...any eye to more radiation? other treatments...?

what would you do with that information, she asked? and I didn't understand the question, so I said, well, try to get better and stay feeling better.

she then explained to me that I would have to sign off all Palliative care to have such tests done. I could always return to Palliative, but it would be a huge sea change if I got an x ray.

that kind of gobsmacked me.

Dr. Gore, I like these days. a lot. if they end today, they've still been sudden life overtime. I want to have no illusions, positive or negative. and...you may have guessed about me, you may even feel some resonance yourself...I've always been a clarity junkie. what is at the crux, at the fulcrum point? I don't own a pair of sunglasses...I need to see, even if I squint. and clear sound...it's been a primary engine in my life.

my central question for you is... do I really need to upset the care cart to find out where we are, how we're doing?

I mean...I'm comfortable. so we know how I'm doing. but...

I'm telling my prayeramedics that it's time to expand the focus of the prayers past a peaceful Transition, to perhaps the impossible miracle that you've seen hundreds of times in your practice, perhaps some impossible chance at healing.

I think it's the realm of prayer.

not yet of my considering as possibility.

how much better should I be feeling before I ask why, and how it can Transition back instead of away?

I had some jokes about this writing...I'll send them separately if you like...I've taken enough of your time. when I am not in touch every day, when we are not in touch every day, I still feel that I am under your care every day, that the benefits I am feeling were painted by you, every stroke, and signed at the bottom. I have so much support here, plenty of help and people to talk to...I try to contact you as genuinely needed, letting you keep up with the Rockies without me as I'm doing other great stuff.

but I never feel you turn away from me and my needs. a singular praise for a healer, from a grateful patient.

Scott