Yesterday marked the last scheduled round of radiation therapy, set to end at the close of six weeks just before the year's end. Sweet Melissa drove me down there to the Davis Cancer Pavillion at UF Health and we saw two oncologist physicians nearly immediately afterwards. Then I "rang the bell" to mark this minor milestone. Before that I wrote a couple of sobering sentences into their guestbook. This is that text:
It is good to complete the six weeks of brain cancer radiation treatments, in spite of the headache side effects. My struggles against GBM continue, and it promises to be difficult and challenging. God bless you all!
The reactions I received to this somber message weren't exactly exuberant, but then again, I never asked or prayed for an easy life for myself. After all, Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee had a difficult go at it throughout their J.R.R. Tolkien-authored Lord of the Rings saga. Harry Potter also had to undergo quite a bit of suffering throughout J.K. Rowling's excellent Harry Potter series,too. Yet these characters' experiences strengthened them and provided transformational growth because they showed up for the challenges and followed through. This is the optimistic message I add to the first somewhat abrupt lines. I didn't exercise this afternoon or evening, but I have confident hopes that I won' t let myself down and will dutifully perform some C-V exercise while watching virtual runs on TV.. More virtual miles to come. Now it's eight in the evening and I just finished my daily exercise, closing out at 4.8 total virtual miles...
