I wake early in the morning. It is such a struggle to stay asleep. I feel like I am wrestling with the mattress and the sheets, as the pillow becomes my nemesis. And I say, enough. I know the light is coming through the shutters soon; the sun will find its way back; dawn will softly, slowly seep into the space where darkness reigned and the world was so seriously silent.

It’s the radiation and the side affects. I’m not complaining, although I’m not sure why not. I am in the home stretch, over the hump, almost free and clear, all those platitudes you think and say which have both elements of truth and falsehood embedded within. Writing this, I only have 3 more. Before I finish this, 2. I’m happy and thrilled the skies have not fallen on me (poo, poo, poo). I cant help but adding “yet” a product of my Jewish sense of foreboding.

People want to know the details of the side effects. I always hesitate cause it feels so personal and embarrassing to talk about urinary urgency, frequency, control. It’s not so problematic to share energy levels and tiredness. I think about one of my favorite science fiction series: Dune. I don’t remember it being in the movie version but there is definitely a thread in the novels about how over the centuries and millennia the habitants of Dune collected their urine and deposited them in vast caverns of this desert planet eventually transforming the wasteland where they had to live under ground to a paradise of green meadows and blue lakes. Or at least that’s how I remember it.

Gently flowing streams, gardens of blossoms and purpose, out of the darkness and into the light. That’s my image for today. And it’s not just the metaphor I hang onto for myself. It is a faith statement about human progress and the slow and uneven climb towards a utopian future. I believe in that. I believe that the tomorrows and the tomorrows after that will be brighter, safer, healthier, fairer than either yesterday or today.

Not without struggle; not without pain; not without effort; not without you and me doing our part to make it happen. So I will lay myself down on that sheet covered table and let the clicks and buzzing of the Linear Accelerator work. It is promising me sunshine and restful nights. It is a miracle of science and thank God for that.