Spiritual Slide Shows

I don’t have to do any more radiation therapy appointments, hence I’ve graduated from radiation treatments and I have the diploma to prove it:

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I woke up at my usual time this morning to get ready to go to the hospital for my daily radiation treatment. Getting "zapped" (my joke word with the radiology techs) on a regular basis hasn’t really been enlightening or draining me either way. It just seems part of life. I checked my phone messages this morning to see I had missed a call from my radiology techs saying their machine was down for the day so I could reschedule the appointment for a different day. I chose to have the day off like lots of others get Good Friday off, so I’ve been running around town running errands. FYI, yesterday it was confirmed with me by the radiologist that I only have 11 treatments left. Am I that done already? I guess so. For readers who consider themselves religious or at least rely on a higher power might consider this next bit interesting… (more…)

I’ve been blessed with many people who have been considerate towards my situation. I truly wish to repay the friendship in an appropriate way and use the example of kindness and become a better friend myself.

In my humble opinion, exercise is a weapon against depression and discouragement. Now if you can combine exercise with nature, you have two therapies in one: fresh air, and blood flow to your thinking organ. This can produce endorphins that help you out of thinking patterns that can end up being rather selfish if you don’t keep them in check.

Last week I had the opportunity for a brief hike in the Phoenix South Mountain park. The friend that suggested it in the first place was one of the surprise visitors in the hospital when I was in the ICU. Back then I wasn’t coherent enough to know when I thought I would be ready and only as of late had my ability to take up the offer for the hike magically "reappear." So we went and I took a photo to prove it:

I had a long afternoon at the doctor’s office yesterday. This time it’s the radiologist who is going to be responsible for my radiation treatments. This particular episode of my treatment is not one I’ve been looking forward to, necessarily, for obvious reasons. I’ll repeat them here:

• Radiation, while very effective for treating people in my condition, has side effects such as fatigue and more notably for me personally: hair loss. I’ve been blessed (thus far) without the side of my family’s gene pool for male pattern baldness occurring earlier in my young adult life. While I’m not particularly vain about my head of hair, I never once considered it would take disease treatment to make me lose it (or parts of it). So I’m going to have to learn to live somewhat without hair. I’ve yet to decide what to do: go entirely bald or just wait and see what the "fallout" area looks like once the side effect of hair loss becomes a factor and deal with it then.

Also on a side note, I had been anticipating participating in my church’s annual Easter Pageant. It’s the largest outdoor easter pageant in the world according to the website: http://www.easterpageant.org/. At any rate, the fatigue factor, rehearsals and performances, and the timing of my daily treatments (which are to be as consecutive as possible) may limit my ability to play my small part. I sure hope not! I’ll keep everyone updated.

What is sort of cool about the consutation appointment yesterday is they formed the head-mask they use for reference on where to aim the energy beams. It’s also to keep my head stationary while I’m strapped to the equipment that delivers the treatment. Word has it that I get to keep this once my rounds of therapy are over. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it yet…anyway here’s a picture of it:

I asked my dad to be the unofficial photographer for this experience and only recently got a hold of the pictures he’s taken with his camera. (Thanks Dad) since there wasn’t anyone in any sort of position to post the pictures online, I’m now "going back in time" and adding pictures to some of the posts so that readers can have a visual of what things have been like. (more…)

Okay, the title of this post is a lame attempt at making fun of a really old song: "Who Let the Dogs Out?" so I’m only trying to make boring news not so boring. Today I went back to the neurosurgeon’s office so he could check out the progress of my healing of my last surgery for the shunt. Here’s a photo: (more…)

Jesus Christ - Christus Statue,
originally uploaded by midiman.

I was messing around on the blog today composing some thoughts together, and decided to head off to my Flickr.com account only to discover that a picture I had taken of a replica of a famous statue of Jesus Christ had worked its way to the top of my most interesting pictures. For months and months it was this one:

Which was just a lucky shot when I was on a business trip. Flickr’s algorithm (computerized method) for determining interestingness depends on a number of factors; including how many people click on the picture to view it in their browser, comment on it, etc. Part of the appeal of being involved with how people consume media is looking at overall trends, and I’m glad to see that Jesus Christ is among the popular topics in Flickr’s community of users and otherwise general web surfers when in fact there could be a whole lot of other stuff to consume.

Anyway it made for a good reason to post to the blog today. No other news or changes to report, just that I finally got to go back to church today and see the people I regularly associate with on Sunday and other days of the week given the opportunity.