Rounding Third

Pardon the sports metaphor. As of today, I'm 25 radiation treatments down and 7 to go. I saw Dr. Gillis today and she was very pleased at how well my skin is doing. Starting tomorrow, the rest of my treatments will be "booster" treatments, meaning the beam will be less widely focused and instead center specifically on the area where the formerly swollen-from-cancer lymph node is. This means my neck and upper chest may start to experience sunburn-like symptoms a week from now, since there is frequently about that much delay between the end of radiation treatment and that reaction. And then of course, I can expect the same a week later when the rest of my upper right torso has been rested from treatment for a week. The area on my back is now behaving like sunburn, but she thought it looked really good, considering, and in fact looked better than last week. Treatment ends a week from Friday. Then I get a few weeks to recover. Then I have a CT scan for followup (based on what she can palpate, it should only show good news, but I'll have a followup appointment with Dr. Gillis, just the same). Then I have the usual battery of blood tests and see my regular oncologist, Dr. Liu. At that point, assuming everything looks good, and I expect it to, I guess I live my life as best and as long as I can, monitoring everything every few months. I can't help thinking of a TV series from the mid-sixties starring Ben Gazzara, called "Run For Your Life".

The weekend was somewhat social and active for me considering my currently sluggish state. I dined with a friend visiting from Chicago on Friday, and on Sunday rode my scooter all the way over the Divisadero hill, then through the Presidio to Crissy Field for Cito's 5th birthday party. What a scene. A gorgeous sunny day on grass near the beach with the GG Bridge right there, and just about every single kid in Cito's preschool class and their parents and dogs, and the rest of us...family members and their dogs, the friends from the pre-marriage, pre-children days and our dogs. Very big, very busy, very fun. I don't know how Holly and Rene have the energy to pull such things off, but I'm glad they do.

The photo was taken yesterday. I had lunch with Della and Rene and Rene's mother Julie. Della can say her own name now in addition to a few other words, and seems to me to be very close to really speaking. She makes a real effort to repeat things that are said to her. And as always, her default attitude is "DELIGHTED". She's a real pleasure to be around.