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| The Crying of Lot 107081 |
I'm four days clear of my last radiation treatment and I'm feeling great both physically and mentally. I wasn't quite sure how it was going to be emerging from the basement at UCSF after radiation session number thirty but I felt instantly revived and awakened. I left with my mask as a party favor in a grocery bag and it felt like a feather rather than a prison as I carried it home with me. A friend had suggested to me before I began that most patients either want to transform their mask into a piece of art or back over it with their car. I initially identified with the latter group but now that's not the case. I don't want to destroy and I don't want to transform it. It stands for itself.
I figure with the initial fitting, the treatments and scans, and the occasional delays, I probably spent in the neighborhood of fourteen hours locked into this thing. When I look at it now I think of perseverance rather than misery, patience rather than suffering, and hope rather than fear.
It has been a long week. I've reached the end of my radiation treatment - just one more session tomorrow morning and I'm done - but I don't feel particularly celebratory or relieved. The past week has left me in a deep state of mourning and reflection.
I have greatly appreciated all of the thoughtful words from around the world in the past two years. I truly consider myself lucky to have friends, family, and colleagues thinking of me, pulling for my health and for our family to weather this storm. Somedays, I believe it has been these thoughts and prayers that have helped buoy me when I've been flagging. Everyday, it has been innumerable graces, large and small, that have carried me along.
