The Electron Pencil

Well — what the hell do y’know? — I’m seeing a light.

No, not that Heaven Is for Real, divine light, near-death experience nonsense. Light. As in the end of the tunnel. As in, Hey, I just might pull out of the world of torment yet.

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Forewarned by my oncology nurse, Mike (“It’s gonna get worse before it gets better.”), I did indeed get worse. Really, really worse. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and even into Monday, I was in such post-chemoradiation misery that I didn’t really care if I’d live or die. Truth.

Had some scamp Satan nudged me in the ribs and said, “Hey, sailor, I’ll pull the switch on all this wretchedness right this minute, only you’re gonna kiss this planet goodbye and come to hell with me and shovel coal for eternity. Deal?”

I would have thought about it long and hard.

A few Monday morning blood tests revealed my kidneys to be functioning about as well as the American presidential election process and my potassium levels to be as low as, well, Donald Trump.

The kids at the infusion center snapped some bags of juicy goodies into my Portacath and pumped me full of several grades of the good old unleaded, including premium. Then they insisted I come back bright and early the next AM for another batch of blood tests and if necessary, more of the good stuff. It was necessary. As it was today, again.

And I’ll be going in tomorrow for the same tune-up.

The transformation has been astounding. Not only do I feel it but The Loved One as well as all the pump jockeys at the center see it. I don’t feel as though I’m dying anymore. Nor do I want die. Hey, Satan, kiss my ass.

Potassium, an electrolyte, plays a vital role in building proteins, the body’s utilization of carbohydrates, building muscle, controlling the body’s acid-base balance, and — most important — making the heart beat a hundred gazillion times a day. When my potassium level fell significantly below recommended figures last week, my already stressed ticker simply leaned back and said, “I’ll pump your goddamned blood when I’m good and ready.”

Needless to say, it was nowhere near enough for my hungry cells, specifically my eager-to-contract heart muscle cells. I was, essentially, shutting down.

Now, no. Now, I’m turning on.

Not only that, Dr. Allerton today put me up on the lift, examined my undercarriage and determined it’s time for me to start swallowing things. Jello. Pureed stuff. Maybe a sip of water here and there, but be careful, he warned, water’s tricky to swallow when you haven’t practiced the act — as I have not — in better than a month. So, the microsecond The Loved One and I got home from today’s long stay at the infusion center (it takes four hours for 40 MEQ of potassium chloride to mix with the blood) she got to work making a bowl of raspberry Jello. It’s in the fridge as I type this, gelling.

It’ll probably taste like the worst stuff I’ve ever put in my mouth — I’m still under the sway of green phlegm — but it’ll have to be done. Okay. I’ll try it.

If it gets me nearer to eating a delicious slice of Salerno’s pizza or even a bite of a corned beef sandwich (I had my brother go to the Kroger Theme Park while he was here and get me two flat cuts for the freezer — it’s a yearly tradition of mine) I’ll be more than happy to gag on some foul tasting Jello.

And if it doesn’t taste foul, well, damn it all, we’re gonna have a Jello orgy at Chez Big Mike tonight!

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We’ll know in June when I get my next PET scan. If nothing lights up inside of me, I’ll be cancer-free.

I’m not going to worry about it just yet. I’m sure as we get closer to the test date I’ll start chewing my fingernails but for now, hell, I don’t have to lay down under that goddamned ray gun anymore nor do I have to endure five hours of poison dripping into me at a time. That’s enough relief and joy to last a guy three months, don’t you think?

Anyway, here’s the vid from my infusion center graduation. They sang a song for me! Then I rang the bell.

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Again, thanks for allowing me to wallow in my joy and love.

Now, I think I just may get back to my infamous Hot Air posts tomorrow. And don’t worry, I’ll be updating you on my healing process as well.

Peace, love & soul.

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I didn’t have to be at the radiation center at 8:30am. What a delicious luxury!

Before I post vids of yesterday’s final sessions of radiation and chemotherapy, I feel compelled to confess I spent a good three hours Sunday drawing up a spreadsheet listing the names, addresses, phone numbers, and hours of all the places I want to eat at in Chi. & Bloomington just as soon as my throat and mouth heal up.

Three freakin’ hours, babies.

Funny thing is, part of the doctor’s orders sheet I got yesterday as I left the rad. center was the appointment time for my follow-up visit with Dr. Wu in two weeks. At that time, acc’d’g to the sheet, Wu will determine if I need to be enrolled in physical therapy and — get this! — swallow therapy programs.

That’s right. I’ll have spent about a month not swallowing anything. That, needless to say, is so wrong that the body simply forgets how to do it. It’s not as though one of these days I’ll just rip an enormous bite off a meatball sandwich and gulp it down as a snake ingests a live rabbit.

My guess is those first swallows will be more along the line of teensy sips of broth for a few days, progressing to soft noodles for a couple of more days, and so on. I won’t be tearing off huge chunks of beef jerky or peanut brittle for a good long while, in other words.

I don’t think I’ll complain though. Ramen noodles in a mild broth would be a gourmet meal to me at this point.

Anyway, I spent much of last night uploading vids from yesterday so here they are:

• Immediately after my last radiation zap, I asked Christy, the fabulous and wonderful radiation technologist, to vid me making sweet love to the radiation gun which, BTW, I both love and hate, not unlike several other sweet lovers I’ve had in my life. The gun did its part in shrinking My Olive Pit™ down to nothing (fingers crossed — we’ll know for sure in June) but it has resulted in my throat on fire, a nasty neck sunburn, an adolescent’s beard, turning me into a weak kitten, more pharyngeal congestion than one could imagine, and other hideousnesses. Still, I wanted to kiss it goodbye:

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• Here, I’m wheeled out of the zapping room and then presented with a certificate of completion:

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• Now, I’m surprised by the appearance of some dear friends, Les, David, and Susan, who showed up unannounced to celebrate with me. It broke me up. Note, I drop the vid cam into my lap and sob. One of the most beautiful moments I’ve ever experienced:

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• Time to ring the radiation bell, with another break down by me. Plus, they tell me to get the hell out and then they give me orders to come back in two weeks for an exam. Just like many another sweet lover, they play with your head!

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I’ll have a couple more vids from the infusion center ceremony tomorrow. Thanks for indulging me. I love you all.

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They tolled for me.

Yup. I had my last radiation and chemotherapy treatments today. I feel as though I’m in a dream.

When we pulled away from the infusion center at about 4:00pm, I was struck by the blue sky, the sunshine, the shoots poking up out of the soil, the yellow and purple flowers, the pedestrians — some of them — traipsing around without coats on. It’s the first full day of Spring, the season of rebirth. And I’m reborn, starting right now, ready to start healing, eager to eat and talk, hankering for a good long walk, wanting to go back to work and hanging out.

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I have just gone 33-3, a memorable pitcher’s record indeed, but an even more amazing count of nukings and poisonings my body has withstood since this whole treatment regime began on Thursday, February 4th, 2016. Thirty-three radiation beams and three chemotherapy doses.

Wow.

Just wow.

Both treatments have kicked the living shit out of me. I was driven at one point to want to quit the whole thing, throw up my hands, and say, “Let this goddamned Olive Pit™ kill me.”

But I hung in there. I have no idea how. I just did it.

The docs, Wu & Allerton, tell me I’m still in for some healthy portions of pain and discomfort over the next couple of weeks. I can bear it all so long as I know I won’t have to wake up tomorrow morning to go get zapped again or filled with more deadly platinum. The shit got real — but it has passed, babies!

Take a look at these photos of today’s events:

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Tomorrow I’ll put up some videos — raw, jerky, utterly unprofessional — of the day’s festivities. WordPress doesn’t allow bloggers to post our own vids easily. I’ll have to upload my very short vids to my YouTube page (which takes thousands of years) and then I’ll have to paste those URLs in the Add Media function. I’m too tired for all that bullshit right now.

Anyway, here are some people whom I now love — even though I hardly know them:

The radiation center crew:

• Dr. Fred Wu
• Christy
• Patty
• Jessee
• Katie
• Wilma
• Melissa
• Rose
• Luke
• Laura
• Judy
• Becca
• Maddie

They are special people who earn their livings saving people’s lives.

The infusion center crew:

• Dr. Jeffrey Allerton
• Mike
• Linda
• Kara
• Lucinda
• Lisa
• Amanda
• Amy
• Misty

Not only do they save people’s lives, they take risks splashing themselves with ungodly toxic substances every day.

I love them all.

I also love Les Crandall and David and Susan Jones, dear pals who showed up today at the radiation center to celebrate my bell ringing with me.

I love all the folks on Facebook who posted pictures of or references to bellringing today.

Goddamn, I’m lucky.

I may still be under the thumb of the side effects of radiation and chemotherapy for a while but the truth is, I’ve never felt so free as I do this moment.

Peace, love & soul.

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With a couple of days remaining in both my radiation and chemotherapy regimens, you’d have thought I’d be riding an emotional and psychological high late Thursday night.

I wasn’t.

In fact, there was big trouble at Chez Big Mike.

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The old line has it that the last hour of the workday is the longest. The same, I suppose, can go for any ordeal. My current crucible fits the adage to a T.

The truth is I was higher a week ago than I was last night. Optimism reigned Friday, the 11th. Hah, I thought, this is nuffin’. A week to go? Lemme just snap my fingers and it’ll all go by like that.

It didn’t.

Time was slowing down. Patience was wearing thin. The pain in my throat seemed to be increasing geometrically. My dreams of food were becoming burdensome. I was becoming physically and psychologically weaker by the tick of the clock. I’d become such a rag doll that this week I at last acceded to the wheel chair. Yep. I let them mobilize me at the radiation and infusion centers. My pride be damned. I could hardly raise my arm to wave hi.

By Thursday, midnight, rather than watching the hours and days slip by, I was frozen in the minutes and the seconds. Plus, I couldn’t clear my throat no matter what I tried. I was gagging and horking pretty much continuously.

Some alarming thoughts entered my coconut. I couldn’t ignore them. I called The Loved One over and told her I needed to talk. Which, in the current situation, means I needed to write her notes. I may as well simply reproduce them here:

I don’t want to be alone.

I’m scared.

For a brief moment, I wanted to get a sharp knife and cut myself.

I wanted to kill myself to put a stop to this pain and shit.

At this point, The Loved One shoved a handful of more paper toward me and said, “Write down every single thing you feel.” So I did. I wrote:

That’s a good idea.

I have a safety net here with you and Joey (my brother, down from Chicago to help out.)

This is very scary.

I have a feeling these feelings are not at all unusual.

Will I ever eat again?

Will I never stop spitting?

Will this powerful, horrible taste go away?

I miss mixing with people.

I miss talking.

I miss fresh air.

I miss moving.

Don’t take this personally but you — and everybody else — smell foul to me.

That’s why I sometimes push you away.

(This came as a great relief to TLO as she’d been puzzled by my distance of late.)

Don’t go.

Merely putting these things on paper seemed to lift them off my shoulders. At this point, my mind turned to some tomorrows.

I want to go to Cutright and Paynetown with Steve (the Dog.)

I want to get coffee at Hopscotch.

I want to talk to Pat, David, Susan, Robbie, Steve L., John S., Hondo & Les, Tyler & Dave, Ashley, Lauren, Steve (Hopscotch’s roaster), Jeff, Jane.

I want to go to a Wager-Miller party.

I want to go to an Alex Straiker party.

I want to go to Science Cafe.

I want to go back to work at the bookstore.

I want to finish the Charlotte Zietlow book.

I want to start up Big Talk again (my WFHB interview show.)

I want to write my first story for Limestone Post.

I want to blog about local politics again.

Next, I simply listed things I wanted to eat again:

Sbarro’s baked ziti

Borzinni’s grandma’s crust pizza

Borzinni’s meatball and mozzarella breadsticks

Cozy Table’s skillet breakfast

Esan Thai’s pad thai

Ramen noodles in a mild broth

Scrambled eggs with melted cheddar on a bagel

Peanut butter on rye toast

Banana cake

Prune juice

My spaghetti & meatballs

Tombstone sausage pizza

Various Chinese noodle dishes

An eggroll

The Loved One’s homemade pierogis

The Loved One’s fresh Polish sausage with fiery horseradish

Smoked Polish sausage

A corned beef sandwich

Stouffer’s spinach souffle

Sweet peas

My homemade meatloaf

My roasted chicken with potatoes

Salmon

Salmon cakes

Tuna salad

Hearth-baked bread & butter

Honey Nut Cheerios

Exhausting for the moment my food fixation, I dreamed of other things:

I want to see your flowers in the front garden.

I want to vacuum.

I want to get a thorough inside & outside wash of my car.

I want to play the guitar again.

I want to build Lego buildings.

I want to rewrite Black Comedy.

God in fucking heaven I need to say — and remember — these things!

I want to go on a road trip with you.

I want to hike while holding hands.

I want to scratch your feet.

Boy I needed this!

I’d forgotten all that stuff!

This shit ain’t easy for anyone involved.

There is absolutely no way to prepare anyone for it.

Just calling it hell seems a joke.

I thought hell meant it would only hurt bad.

I had no idea my mind, my emotions, my spirit, would be so damaged.

I was spent.

The Loved One, pulled the papers close to her and wrote the coda:

Thanks you for getting all of this out. I’m here anytime you need that. OK? Share — the good, the bad, and the ugly. I love you.

I am lucky.

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So, I won’t be ringing any bells anywhere today.

Turns out my white cell count has dropped to a precipitously low level. Both radiation and chemotherapy devastate the immune system, mainly by suppressing white cell production. White cells are produced in the bone marrow and comprise about 1 percent of the blood. Their job is to attack disease-causing microorganisms as well as any foreign substance invaders. They’re the body’s National Guard, as it were, and so at this point my body is now ripe for invasion.

As a result, my last chemotherapy session, scheduled for today at 10am, has been postponed. I’ll have to get subcutaneous shots of Neupogen (generic: filgrastim) both today and tomorrow. Neopogen stimulates the bone marrow to produce more white cells. Acc’d’g to my infusion center nurse, Mike, these two doses ought to strengthen my immune system to the point where I’ll be able to get that third chemotherapy treatment Monday.

Which is ironic because Monday’s going to be my last day of radiation so I just may be able to ring bells at both places that day.

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Another irony: Dr. Allerton, my medical oncologist, prescribed something called Neulasta to follow each of my chemotherapy sessions at the very beginning of this journey. Neupogen is an earlier generation of Neulasta but still works just as well to kick the bone marrow into high gear. Sadly, my health insurance carrier’s beancounters, an outfit called Medical Cost Management Corp., whose job it is to make sure the insurance co. pays out as little as possible, nixed the Neulasta for me, calling it an “experimental” treatment. Which it sort of is, when used in the prophylactic sense — meaning to prevent white cell insufficiency rather than rectify it.

Because MCM had denied me, The Loved One and I would have had to come up with about $16,000 out of pocket for the three doses of the drug. The docs and nurses all said that wouldn’t be necessary, seeing I wasn’t too old a coot and my overall health wasn’t that godawful bad.

So, I blithely said, “Screw it! Who needs Neulasta?”

Well, I do. Or, more precisely, its grandfather, Neupogen. Today and tomorrow.

To tell the truth, I’m sort of relieved. Yeah, I was eager to get this last chemotherapy thing out of the way but I certainly was not looking forward to the dog-sickness it’ll produce in me. This way, I’ll get a weekend respite from everything and then finish both treatment regimens in a grand finale Monday, the 21st.

Which, BTW, will be the first full day of Spring, 2016. Tra-la!

Man, I’m gonna celebrate — I’ll pump an extra 12-ounce bottle of Gatorade into my belly when I get back from the infusion center that day.

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Am I Dead Yet?

How about this one for a funny thing that happened on the way to oblivion?

I went in this morning for my pre-chemotherapy blood labs. My third and last c. session is tomorrow and even though it’s going to make me sick as a dog, I’m looking forward to it because I never want to have to get platinumed-up again. I’m going to ring that goddamned bell off the goddamned wall, I tell you.

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Anyway, the nurses aide was taking my vitals while the nurse prepped for my blood draw. It seemed to be taking the digital blood pressure machine a long time to get a reading on me. After what seemed endless minutes, the machine started sounding a mad alarm. They two of them checked the readout and my blood pressure stood at a distinctly touchy 120/11.

That’s right — one-twenty over eleven. In other words, I was either dead or seconds away from giving my valedictory. Natch, I freaked. The first — and only thought — that came to mind was my genetically eff-yooed heart had finally quit as a result of all the nuking and poisoning going on the last five weeks. The big pump had stopped, only my mind didn’t know it yet. Soon, I’d be tumbling through some kind of twilight zone-ish psychedelic spiral while blinded by a piercing light.

Only both the aide and the nurse started laughing.

“Well, that’s a new one,” the nurse said.

“I’ve never seen that before,” the aide added.

“Yeah, at least not in this type of situation.”

The situation, I immediately understood, was not one wherein I would be turning rigory or mortisy in the next few minutes.

“Let’s try it again,” the nurse said. Again, she tee-heed.

So the aide did and my BP turned out this time to be a more robust 118/59.

Phew.

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Ain’t No Stopping

And that turned out to be my second sudden death scare of the past 16 hours. Last night, I started taking my anti-nausea pills in advance of my final chemotherapy session tomorrow. The pill, though, got caught in my throat just behind my fiery-red uvula and in my inner pharynx, the walls of which are papered in a blazing carmine with razor blades.

I panicked. I began to choke. And gag. And hork. I lost my breath. My diaphragm spasmed uncontrollably.

Tears poured from my eyes. The skin on my face turned scorching. No matter what, none of these reactions would stop. This little drama went on for a good ten minutes before I started banging on a table and screaming — as feebly as I could — “Help!”

The Loved One and Joey My Brother, who both were napping, came bounding into the room. And there wasn’t a damned thing either could do for me, making The Loved One, at least, all the more panicky than even I.

She peppered me with inquiries:

• “Should we call an ambulance?”
• “Do you want me to pound your back?”
• “Let’s call the hospital!”
• “Can you breathe?”

I neither had answers nor could I have communicated them if I did.

Somehow, someway, the crisis passed.

Once I regained a modicum of equilibrium, I was able to offer some observations:

• I was sure I was going to die.
• Overall, I was fairly sure I didn’t want to die.
• For a moment or two, I did want to die.
• This pain in my throat is worse than any I’ve ever felt in that locale in my life.
• Responding to TLO’s suggestion that maybe I should ask for a week’s break before resuming radiation, I slammed my hand on the table and said, “Hell no!”
• I will finish this treatment regimen if it kills me.
• If I don’t finish this thing up Monday, March 21st — the date of my final radiation session — I’ll become despondent.
• My whole emotional underpinning the last few weeks has been based on looking forward to the 21st.
• No. I will not stop now.
• This even though Dr.Wu told me in the morning that he usually gives patients a little break at sometime during the regimen.
• Only he really doesn’t like to because the radiation works better when it is done without interruption. He told me I’ve been handling the side-effects like a champ. “You’re a tough guy,” he said.
• How can I ask for a break now?
• There’s a goddamned plastic hose running into my belly.
• I saw another man come in for his first radiation treatment in the morning and it made me cry.
• I haven’t eaten in a little less than a month.
• I haven’t had a good big delicious glass of water in the same span.

No matter. I’m shooting the moon. I’ve got a bell to ring tomorrow afternoon and another Monday morning. Then I’m outta here. Fuck you, cancer.

To that end, Dr. Wu showed me some MRI images of my neck yesterday. My Olive Pit™, the main one, has been reduced to the point where it just may be only a little fleck of scar tissue. I could have kissed him.

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I haven’t felt this way since I was a little kid awaiting Christmas. I’d count down the days and they’d never go by fast enough.

I’ve got only five more sessions of radiation therapy left. Starting tomorrow, each day of the week will be my last for the rad. center.

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The days do seem to be zipping by, though, probably a result of my years on this planet. When I was 10 years old, a season was a significant fraction of my life to that point. Now, a week is like a day or even an hour.

I recall being giddy when I’d hit the one-third mark back on Friday, February 18th. That was my eleventh radiation day out of the total of 33. I thought I’d reached the top of Denali.

Turns out that was nothin’.

Now, with a mere handful of zaps left to endure, I’m scuffling up the side of Mt. Everest. When I get there, I’m going to breathe deeply — and then climb down as fast as I can off of this goddamned, godforsaken peak.

I don’t want to stand on top of the world and crow “I did it, Ma!” I never wanted to make the ascent in the first place. So, yeah, I’ll celebrate, to a point. Then the real celebration will commence as I gradually return to normality.

Funny thing is, our psyches are so baffling. Normality may turn out to be a terrible letdown. I’ve been building up the end of treatment to be the greatest thing since homemade pizza; it very well could turn out to be just the frozen variety.

Ah, what am I worried about? This craziness is going to be finished a week from today. I’ll roar (silently — my throat is still on fire), I’ll pump my fists. I’ll hug everybody in sight. I don’t give a good goddamn if I feel any kind of letdown. I can deal with it. Believe me, after enduring this cancer treatment, I feel I can endure anything.

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An End In Sight

I woke up this AM in a state of shock. My first thought was, “Holy shit, this is my final week of chemoradiation!”

I can hardly believe it. I’ve gone through five weeks of nuking and poisoning and, somehow, I’m still alive. My Olive Pit(s)™, OTOH, are dying. The main pit, the one just to the left of my thyroid gland, is down to the size of a le sueur pea. The others have been reduced so far that nobody can feel them anymore, not even Dr. Wu, whose digits are as sensitive as, well, the princess to a pea.

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This fifth week will be the coup de grace. Both the radiation and the chemotherapy work cumulatively — as well as in support of each other — so that by the end of this coming week their combined might likely will turn my little le sueur and its satellites into nothing. Just where I want the dinky bastards to be.

So, I’m on a bit of a high right now.

I hadn’t been for a few days. I’d been having some throat problems — pain and sloughing off of mucous membrane (keep in mind my throat is being sunburned so the inside of it is, essentially, peeling). It’s taken days for me to learn how much and how often to dose myself with Hydrocodone, the dope that handles the pain and sloughing. I think I’ve got it down now. My Hydrocodone dreams, though, are bordering on the psychedelic. Cool. I’ll put up In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida right now.

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I’ve been daydreaming about food, of course. I have to keep reminding myself that I won’t be able to chow down the day after radiation stops, Monday, March 21st. It’ll take my throat a few weeks to heal and my salivary glands and taste buds to come back on line, as much as they’re going to for the rest of my life.

Weirdly, one of the dishes I’ve been fixated on is the baked ziti from Sbarro, an Italian fast food chain that was founded in Brooklyn 60 years ago and is now HQ’d in Columbus, Ohio. I used to eat Sbarro’s baked ziti at the Thompson Center food court in the Chicago Loop. It wasn’t bad stuff, for a chain. I wouldn’t prefer it to my own homemade b.z., or Club Lago‘s baked mostaccioli, or any Sicilian cook’s pasta but it would do in a pinch. I googled for Sbarro’s locations in Indy, Louisville, and Cincy but, sadly, found none. The closest sites are in Chi.

Long as I’m going to be forced to trek up north in late April or even May, I may as well do the whole gustatory tour: Ricobene’s for pizza, Chinatown for dim sum, the Red Apple for Polish buffet, Café Iberico for paella, and so many others. My mouth — much as it can — is watering.

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The radiation center and the infusion center at which I get, respectively, my nuke and platinum poisons, each have a bell attached to the wall near the exit. The bells are the old-fashioned kind you’d have seen on a 19th Century corvette.

It’s a tradition for the cancer patient who has at last reached her/his final treatment session to ring the bell once said session is complete. Finishing either therapy regimen is a notable landmark, natch, and patients like to celebrate the idea that they won’t be fried, sizzled, zapped, toxified, or dosed any longer.

The staff at these treatment centers, as well as many of the patients who happen to be getting fried/dosed at that particular moment, stand and applaud the patient of honor. I’ve imagined ringing my bells at my two centers many times. Tears are always involved.

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My brother in cancer, a fellow named Layne Kent, is a sweet and tough high school teacher who this week has the opportunity to ring the bell at his infusion center in Indianapolis. Shockingly — to me at least — he is declining to do it. Here’s his Facebook post explaining his decision:

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See? I told you Layne was a sweet guy. And tough, too, considering he’s endured a dozen goddamned rounds of chemotherapy. Man, I’d rather be forced to listen to a dozen Donald Trump speeches.

Anyway, Layne’s concerned about his cancer-sibs still slogging away, nowhere near ringing the bell themselves. A human being with an attitude like his walks with the angels.

I’m not so angelic.

And, no, that doesn’t mean I’m a self-centered ringer of bells either. Let me explain.

I’ve heard the bell rung a couple of times thus far. One, in fact, was for a guy I already know. Each time I heard the pealing, my eyes flooded — both for the ringer and myself.

I truly felt a sense of oneness with the person ringing the bell. I sensed the joy and relief the two ringers experienced as they pulled the clapper’s rope. One of the traits that make us human — or, more accurately, humane — is our ability to empathize with our fellow Homo Sapiens sapiens. I’ve rarely felt more human than when I got frissons from hearing those ringing bells. I was thrilled to be as one with another.

And then there’s my more inaltruistic reaction. The ringing of those bells signified time passing. When one is undergoing 33 daily sessions of linear beam radiation therapy along with three jolts of cancer-killing (and pretty much everything else-killing) drugs, time is the most precious commodity imaginable. Those two lucky souls yanking on the bell rope had also benefitted from that commodity. Time passed. They were finished. They rang their bell.

So, I thought each time I heard the dinging, would I. That bell is a carrot on a stick, an earthworm on a fishhook, drawing me inexorably closer to that dreamed-of final day. Thanks for ringing that bell, I’d say silently, reminding me of my own glorious moment to come.

Layne and I. Two different fellows who are as one.

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