Session 14

Session 14 March 11
Today was another great meeting day. Our working group gelled and became both more expressive and more creative. I arrived a bit late because I had to to make sure Cherie’s work calls were made to inform people she was still ill and arrange for my older son Matt to come over. My trip to Sunnybrook late in the day was uneventful. I got on the right bus and got there on time. Only one of my regulars was there and the woman who was subbing was a little less smooth on the machine adjustments. She more than compensated with her caring attitude. I was delighted to hear from a man older than me and clearly less fit that he had already had 27 treatments with no side effects. His experience may have no relevance to me but I was happy for him and encouraged for me notwithstanding

Going home on the TTC was less than perfect because of a slowdown on the TTC Yonge Street subway. Trains were being stopped at Bloor because of a problem at Queen and for some reason this made it very slow to get to Bloor. A young woman next to me pointed out that the TTC announcer told two different stories about what was happening. The first account was that there was an injured passenger at track level. The next one announced a power outage leading to speculation someone had jumped and the first announcement had been a mistake since the TTC usually keeps it quiet about suicides. I hadn’t been paying much attention being more interested in Paul Simon on my iPod but I started listening. Interestingly after one more announcement of power outage the announcer went back to injured passenger. One can only imagine the frenzied behind the scene conversations that lead to the changing messages. When I talked about it to a friendly street car driver on my last stretch home his response was to laugh and to say nobody has any idea what is going on. Let’s hope he’s wrong.

At home Cherie was still quite ill but maybe a little better and Patrick had cared for her all day though Matt had been willing to do more. We spent some time watching TV and this was a victory for Cherie who had previously felt too ill to leave her bed. As I write at 12:30 I realize again that in the press of life even with these daily trips to the big machine in the basement I am able to stay in the present almost all the time. I am not programmed to belief I will have a bad outcome and I hope that belief has some influence on my body and this struggle to eliminate rogue cells. I’ll find out soon enough.