November 2nd, 2015

Sorry it has been so long since I last wrote anything here. The last few weeks have been a bit tough, and I really have not felt up to writing, nor have I had the clarity of mind to come up with anything worth saying. Also my computer finally showed its age and no longer works. I'm very thankful for google drive, where I long-ago started saving everything of importance, knowing that my computer's days were numbered. Anyways, I'm hoping to get back to posting weekly here.

It is a strange thing, to have finished all my planned treatment (for now at least), and to feel worse than I have since last December or January, when treatment was just starting and things were pretty rough. I feel like I should feel all better, and be getting on with the things I want to do in life. Instead I spend 95% of the day just sitting there, trying to eat minuscule portions of food and keep it down, trying to kill time and get through another day, hoping that the next will be better. But I really cannot tell a difference from one day to the next. When I look back three or four days, I can tell I'm doing a little better, but certainly I make no discernible improvement over the course of just one day. It is a frustratingly slow process, one that makes me think of radiation as, in some ways, the worst part of my treatment this past year. Sure, chemo might have stronger effects, and make them known almost immediately. Yes, major abdominal surgery is tougher, though not for nearly as long. Radiation, by comparison, is an insidious and sneaky little bugger.

All I did was lie there on a table while a big fancy machine slowly circled me. It's not like I was cut open from sternum to pelvis, or pumped full of poison. I just had to hold still. Nothing even touched me. The first week or two I couldn't have even told you if the machine was really emitting radiation or if it was just a placebo. But now, over three weeks removed from the last day of radiation, I can tell you in no uncertain terms that yes, my insides were getting zapped. Compared to chemo, where a good night's sleep would often lesson the side-effects considerably, this healing process is agonizingly slow. Compared to one of my major surgeries, I now, three and a half weeks out, feel about the same as I would four or maybe five days removed from surgery. I'm eating the same amount of food, and feel about as sore in my stomach. At least with radiation there's no NG tube though, or staples, IVs, and epidurals to come out yet. So I try to be grateful for that, at least.

It all makes me wonder though what things in my life are like radiation therapy. As a preface, this is going to be a rather imperfect analogy. Chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation have all saved my life, and I am immensely grateful for the level of medical care I have received. I am really only talking here about treatments and their side-effects, not their long-term, life-saving effects.

So what, in life, is like radiation therapy? Certainly there are obvious chemos and surgeries in our lives, those blatantly unhealthy or destructive habits or practices we all have that can so clearly damage our lives, our relationships, our souls. Holding on to hatred, failing to forgive, becoming enslaved to money or food or power...These are not so difficult to see, even in our own lives, which are of course much harder to examine than the lives of others. These kinds of habits and their consequences are hard to miss. But what about the radiation therapy, the insidious, sneaky little buggers that we don't even realize are happening until there is obvious damage already done?

As my wife could tell you, mine is comfort, mingled with laziness. If it's easier to not go out of my way or do something thoughtful, 9 times out of 10 that's the course I'll take. If it's easier to sit and read or watch a movie for three hours than it is to talk to someone and invest in a relationship, that'll be what I do.There's certainly nothing wrong with reading a good book or spending a lazy Saturday afternoon watching college football. They definitely wouldn't compare, in most people's minds, to holding a grudge, or stopping at nothing to gain more power and influence, no matter how many people get trampled on your way up. And that is why such things are sneaky.

Like lying on a radiation table while a machine moves around you and nothing noticeable happens to your body, a lazy afternoon seems harmless. And, if it doesn't happen too often, it is harmless. If I had only gotten one or two days of radiation therapy, I would hardly have the same struggles I'm facing now, after 20 treatments. When we make habits of wasting time, or of putting merely acceptable activities in front of truly meaningful investments of our time, the long-term effects can be just as painful for us as the consequences of more obvious wrongdoings. While holding grudges can make one bitter, hateful, and unable to receive forgiveness from others or even oneself, habitually choosing to spend too much time on simply unobjectionable activities over genuinely meaningful ones can leave one's life just as empty. It's something I know I need to work on, though feeling genuinely unable to do much more than sit around all day is the perfect excuse for me to make every day a lazy one where I spend far too much time doing OK things, and nowhere near enough time doing anything meaningful. I'll work on it though. Tomorrow. When I'm feeling better. Or so I keep telling myself...