DAY 008 -- "There Is Still A Light That Shines On Me"

Wooha! Today is the first day I’ve gotten up in the morning with zero pain. I’ve been living constantly with a two on the ten scale, even with my breakthrough meds, which I take when I hit eight. But, today, a zero!  (See Day 007 blog entry) The Doc today said these pain-free times will increase as the tumor shrinks. Ahoow! (I love palindromes.)

My total respite only lasted a few hours, but it was nice to get out of my own constricting circle for a while and be able to fully focus on something else without applying the constant body English. You know the kind; it’s the twist and contortion you perform to help keep that fly ball fair, or your bowling ball out of the gutter.

It works, too, and it doesn’t matter if it’s real or not. It works, and that’s real enough for me.  But, I do have to be mindful of my compensating shrugs and lifts when the pain is suddenly sharp, and I also emit those little blurting exhales in public that I can’t control, easing the stab and alarming anyone close by.

But, as I’ve been discovering and relating here, I find myself feeling increasingly liberated from what have long been customary social niceties and decorum. I’m only sorry it took a cancer to show me that I’ve spent (we all have) WAY too much time fussing over the inconsequential, laboring over trivialities, caught up in crap.

That’s not saying that I’m now not respecting the space and sensitivities of others, but if I now inadvertently encroach on them, I’m not going to lose sleep over it. The cancer deprives me enough of that.

Now, if I notice that my socks have holes and/or don’t match, if I fart in an elevator, or if I trip and fall headlong into the produce section, I’m fine with it. I wear my holey hosiery with pride, take credit for my flatulence (apologetic but unrepentant), and brush the lettuce off my nose, announcing to the bystanding herbivores that I meant to do that; it’s my face plunge freshness test. 

Usually, laughs ensue all ‘round. When they don't, I can’t and won't fret over the small stuff. If we’re all honest with each other, and as it's oft been said: most of life is the small stuff.

One of my wife Diane’s frequent lines to me now is “Let it go. Just let it go.” She says this when she hears me fuming out loud over a moronic president, when I hit the wrong notes on the piano, or when my homespun trellis falls apart. She’s right there with a “Let it go,” and seals it with a hand on my shoulder or pulling me in for a soft kiss. She’s right, of course, and her moderating defuser is getting righter every day.

Just maybe not so coincidentally, my radiation chamber soundtrack today, soon as I stretched out in my mold and the whirring began, was “Let It Be.”  Hmmm … yes:

And when the night is cloudy

 there is still a light that shines on me.
Shine until tomorrow, let it be.

From here on out, I’ll welcome the zeroes, take the twos and fix the eights.

Let it go. Let it be.

More as we go, more as we are, El