I wrote the paragraphs below this one shortly after I awoke this morning, when I felt more energetic, more hopeful, and more powerful than I feel now. Reality settles over me like low-lying fog hovering above a river in the early morning. The stuff is so thick I fear I’ll drown if I breathe in too deeply. When life becomes so attractive and appealing that it threatens to burst with joy, it can implode instead. With the collapse of overwhelming beauty, fog becomes smoke. Smoke thickens into tar. Tar hardens into something impermeable and unbreakable like obsidian, almost invisible in its eternal blackness. The last stage of rage follows—absolute silence except for the gritting of teeth and the snapping of bones in one’s clinched fists. But it has nowhere to go, no targets to destroy. So it tries to consume itself, leaving hideous collateral damage in its wake.
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The warmth of Spring disappeared with a vengeance yesterday afternoon. Temperatures, which had reached into the high seventies (perhaps even higher) in recent days, retreated into the upper twenties or low thirties by late evening. Weather reports from around the state and the region show that tornadoes and straight-line winds did substantial damage as the cold-front swept through. For us, there was wind and a bit of rain, but nothing as severe as the devastation surrounding our area.
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Last night, mi novia hosted a family dinner at The Porterhouse, an upscale steakhouse in downtown Hot Springs. The family included: mi novia, her daughter, her daughter’s son, mi novia‘s ex-husband, my late wife’s sister, and me. When dinner was over, several of us took vast amounts of food home with us. My take-home included an enormous chunk of my entree, a monstrous bone-in ribeye steak with bourbon and mushroom glaze. Delightful evening! Earlier in the day, while I was napping, mi novia‘s daughter dug up a huge mass of quartz crystal in our yard; she spent considerable time cleaning it, revealing an extraordinarily beautiful piece of natural art that has been hidden from our view. Before that, the child-grandchild pair did work for which we ancients had little energy; re-stuffed pillows into newly-cleaned upholstered covers for our deck furniture. The two of them are great company; if only they lived closer so their visits could be more frequent.
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Beginning this afternoon, for each of the next ten weekdays, I will go to town to undergo a procedure called whole-brain radiotherapy with hippocampal avoidance (HA-WBRT). The purpose of the procedure will be to reduce or eliminate a metastatic lesion in my brain. I know. I’ve already said this. I’m saying it again to emphasize, for myself, what is at stake. Without treatment, the cancer probably would spread quickly. There is no guarantee the procedure will stop the development, but it is certainly worth a try. The likely or potential short-term side-effects (fatigue, alopecia, nausea, short-term cognitive issues) typically do not last long, according to both the radiologist who recommended the procedure and Dr. AI Google. A medication (memantine) I am to take to accompany the process for a period of several months, beginning today, has some side-effects of its own, including:
- Dizziness and headache: Frequently reported, particularly when starting treatment.
- Gastrointestinal issues: Constipation, diarrhea, vomiting, and decreased appetite.
- Neurological symptoms: Confusion, drowsiness (somnolence), fatigue, and insomnia.
- Other: Hypertension (high blood pressure), anxiety, pain (especially back pain), and cough
Thus far, my experiences with cancer have been less than pleasant, but far from intolerable. I am quite fortunate in that regard; I have seen many patients whose experiences have been nothing short of horrible. My hope, of course, is that my own experiences do not degrade into that territory, in which the treatment experience may be dramatically worse than the disease.
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Diving into the depths of a good day, one is bound to encounter a few sharp rocks and stray bullets.
