WEATHER: Finally, real rain. Not virga, not barreling through like a train with another destination. It’s drumming on my flat roof at 6:30 this morning, pouring from the canales, wakening white blossoms on the Apache Plume, reddening the flagstone outside my bedroom window.
It’s too good to sleep through, even early on a Sunday.
I grab my point-and-shoot before I make coffee.
CANCER: Friends have been asking, and so I report: The radiologist’s narrative following my first CT scan since completing seven weeks of radiation and chemotherapy for lung cancer began with the words “significant favorable response.”
Now, it is on to a surgeon. I meet with him and the oncologist this coming week. I’ve already been told I probably can expect more chemotherapy.
Since an x-ray on Dec. 3 and a biopsy on Jan. 12, I have been telling people I will know more the following week. This continues to be the case.
I feel fine except for trying to keep my wind with a partly collapsed lung on uphill walks. Friends say I look great, at least relative to cancer treatment. I continue to be optimistic. I am happy this morning.
I think the glass is half full and half empty. All I’m sure of is that I’ve got cancer. I am told lung cancer is difficult to treat. I struggle to understand the science, but I think I have learned that this is a long and complex haul. And I am trying to learn to live with it.
dream ranch 