Date sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2003 5:06 PM
The Campaign is Almost Over

With one week left in my “treatment campaign” I continue to feel better and feel optimistic. Next week will be my last week of chemotherapy and radiation, then I will get six weeks to recover without any treatment. At the six week follow-up (the first week in September) I will do an MRI that will show the first objective measurement of how the “missiles” and “ground troops” did. Subjectively, I already know that I feel a lot better now than before I came. When I get the MRI, we will make a new plan from there. Our expectations are to just send in more “ground troops” (or chemotherapy). Working with the doctor in California we may do supplemental chemotherapy as well because my tumor type is resistant to many forms of chemotherapy. 

A few people have asked what role the doctor in California plays. Mark Renneker is a family doctor/consultant who knows a lot about cancer treatments. We found out about him through Don Wallace, a friend in Yellow Springs. As mentioned in the last update, he has a plethora of knowledge of different treatments for cancer and different treatment centers. 

At physical therapy for example, I improve at each session well beyond their expectations. I walked today almost two miles to the Cleveland Art Museum from The Hope Lodge. Before I came to treatment, I only could walk the circle of our cul de sac at home before I needed to go sit down. 

One of the things that is still bothering me is my speech. Before treatment I would have halted speech when I was feeling stressed. Now I feel that I have halted speech in many different situations. I have a hard time articulating words and it seems like I am mumbling. I feel like this has gotten worse with treatment. I also feel like this will get better as my treatment finishes.

My brother Jonah was my caregiver last week. That worked out very well. We haven’t spent this much time together in many, many years. And since he works in California, he was able to work from the road when I rested. He even bought a new lap tap for the occasion. I got a new haircut last week to match my pattern baldness. He took this picture.

While my kids were in town, Hana came to visit my radiation treatment. She was very excited to see all of the different pieces of the process. She wanted to participate in everything like putting my mask on for example. It was very cute. She came in and out of the room with technicians as they readjusted me. Abi and I talked about this being a way for her to integrate my experience.

The energy that supports my continued healing is vast and deep. A person that I did the Inner Bonding workshop with in Toronto last year wrote me this week and asked me if I still wanted to be included in their Reiki Circle. I said, of course. The hundred people that receive this journal entry directly keep me in their thoughts. The unknown number of people that visit my website, do the same. A healer in Maryland is working to help. The doctor in California has also helped me. The Yellow Springs community often stop Abi in the street and ask how I am doing, so I have a whole community of support as well. So, I am surrounded by love and connectedness to other people. 

I have appreciated having “time away” but I am ready to go home. In going home, I am wanting to find a way to bring some of what I have learned here, back. For example, I need quiet healing space. So I have been thinking about how to do that in our home and envisioned making our office a sanctuary of some sort with plants and new paint and just general decluttering.

Bill, my caregiver from Yellow Springs, is with me in Cleveland this week and next week. We get the Fourth of July off so we are going to leave tomorrow morning for Yellow Springs. The radiation machine has been down for the last two days so I missed those two treatments. I have just gotten a call, as we wrote, to come in this evening for one of the treatments.

I think we are done for now. Love, hope and thanks -

Dan

"life can only be understood backwards,
but must be lived forwards"

 

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