I began my consolidation phase of chemotherapy and radiation this morning. There were so many patients in oncology that it took until 10:00 for me to get hooked up. D. B. drove me to the oncology center and T. R. came later for a visit. T. mentioned again that his former girl friend was marrying a six foot four South African. He said that the was a meeting of Kunta Kinte with the “Snow Princess!” For the most part, I was rather tired during the chemo, but I made it through without too much discomfort.
After my early afternoon radiation treatment, I met with Dr. Halberg. She is really nice, and spent the most unhurried time with me that I had experienced with any physician on my team since Dr. Torigoe spent almost two hours with us. She was caring and patient, even though she was interrupted several times to look at X-Rays, and other short tasks. I was rather surprised by her statement that she didn’t expect me to have a complete response! She remarked that my initial invasive tumor was so aggressive and so extensive that she was surprised and happy by the pathology report! She also discussed the surface tumor with us, and said that she would not be surprised if I developed further surface tumors, and that anything we could do to prevent them was a step in the right direction. I had already told my wife that when this round of chemo and radiation was completed, I wanted to do a lot of new research on how to prevent bladder tumors from growing in the first place. Francine also mention that she was familiar with the anti-biotic trials at Pan Pacific Urology, but that I probably would not be eligible.
The second pass of radiation went without incident. I continued to do my visualization of the radiation as light entering my body and encouraging immature cells and potential cancer cells to shrivel up and be eliminated through my normal elimination channels. I also visualize my body as transparent to the radiation in such a way that the X-Rays affect the immature cells and potential cancer cells and then pass through my body, as in the X-Ray transmission studies in physics. I want to chat with the radiation physicist to understand the X-Ray transmission studies in more detail, as it has been almost thirty years since I left the field of physics for computers.