DAY 004 -- "Goes Far, Flies Near"

Resumed radiation following Independence Day yesterday, a day off from treatment. Oh, and I’m now adopting “Independence Day” for my own use (my apologies, Uncle Sam; it’s only temporary and I’ll return it when I’m finished.)

Independence.  To be free of tubes, wires, lights meant to heat, heat meant to illuminate, and free of any machine that rotates, flashes and hums around my body, somehow mapping my innards which now present with new detours and (dare I say it) dead ends.

Some stubborn chest pain today, getting up to 8 on the scale. Same place, same sensation, just amplified: something resembling striking my chest with a ball-peen hammer through a bowling ball. And, it migrates to the back. So, today it only hurt when I stood, sat, laid down, breathed, talked, walked or slept.

I think I tried everything except running it off.  And chocolate. Next time, I’m going jogging with a Hershey bar.

I do use my cannabidiol (CBD) for these breakthroughs, but it’s efficacy has become unpredictable: some days a drop or two sublingually does the trick, others I have to reach for the fast-release oxycodone --- always effective, but I’d rather be ingesting, shooting, swallowing, rubbing or inserting an organic reliever versus popping a semisynthetic opioid.

I’m reaching into the Sherman archives, where my grandma’s formula for good living was simple: “Whatever flips your skirt.”

For now, the docs agree with this approach and encourage me to use and do whatever works best.

Entering the treatment room, the attending Radionettes again hit my high musical mark. Soon as I climbed up on the terrible table and stretched out in my mold, they cued up Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride.”

On a cloud of sound I drift in the night
Any place it goes is right
Goes far, flies near
To the stars away from here

Hmmm … today that may have worked better than running with chocolate.

More as we go, El