Medical Consultation Set for This Morning

 As my medical treatment for glioblastoma brain cancer enters another week, I find myself with an oncologist appointment early this morningin the Archer Road Neuroscience Building, coupled with a request for a lab blood draw...if it's a no-show, I expect a nurse practitioner appearance instead.  The oncologist should at least be present to discuss her interpretation of my recent MRI. Other than the visits, draws, scans and medications, my fight for recovery is mostly a matter of complying with doctors' orders and not letting things get out of hand.  I have been keeping up with running in place, also doing a few difficult inner perimeter walking laps in the back yard.  The time is now approaching four thirty in the morning, and I finally got up and ran in place for eight minutes.  I don't expect ecstatic proclamations out there from any physician, but should get through today's consultation without too much frustration, patiently sitting back through all of the technical overdrive.  Melissa is such an incredible blessing with her driving and expertise and concern about treatments and tests. Let's see, how about a little more rest this morning, after I get little Peewee all happily agitated when I go back there? I thought I would hold back on brewing any coffee until later on in the morning...

Final Radiation Round, Difficult LIves, Exercise

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...