cancer

There Will Be Light

/ howardshapiro / 6 Comments

IMG_0344I 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.

It’s Not a Microwave

/ howardshapiro / 16 Comments

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So this was day one; thirty-nine more to go. Forty is a transitional number in the Bible. It rains forty days and nights in the Noah story; Jonah walks through the city of Nineveh for forty days warning the people to repent. The Israelites wander in the desert for forty years until they can cross over and enter the land of promise. Even Jesus gets in the act being tempted for forty days and nights before returning to the Galilee to preach. It seems in Biblical times one enters this time of forty and comes out the other side different, changed, ready, healed. I’m counting on it.

This was day one of my forty radiation treatments. I was diagnosed with prostate cancer back in the fall and today I laid myself down and let the machine begin the healing process. It didn’t hurt; I felt nothing; even the sounds coming out of the machine were much less intimidating than an MRI. It’s not the only protocol associated with my treatments but this was a moment of so many thoughts and so many associations.

It is hard hearing this cancer word even though people I love and respect have told me that I will be fine. I will not die from this. I just have to follow the rules, keep strong and stay positive. Everything in this process has been stepped, like those of Russia. Wide swaths of time waving in the wind silently speaking that this cannot be ignored (not the cancer nor the emotions). When my PSA numbers first began to climb the Doctors said it was time to check my blood every six months and then it was time to have an MRI and then it was time to have a biopsy and then – I don’t have to go through all the details….

But today was real. I found myself looking for meaning in everything, looking for signs. It is the evening of my mother’s birthday; the color of the red light against the backdrop of the water and the sky where I make the left is redder than usual. The arms of the machine against the blue of the plastic panes are embracing. It is good – twice good – to begin on a Tuesday since on that third day of creation, God said it was good, twice. It will be fine.

I guess what it all adds up to is my finitude is catching up. I’m going to let it for a while, maybe 39 more times, but then: Watch out – I am crossing out the lines on the bucket list.