For Wilshire Baptist Church
Edward Elgar made me cry this morning while driving home from radiation treatment. Or was it something else?
Just 30 minutes earlier, while in the “tube” at UT Southwestern getting treatment for the tumor in my sinus, I was listening to classical music and the first movement from Elgar’s “Enigma Variations” cycled through. I made a mental note to listen to the entire suite on the way home, and then I told the therapist as I was leaving, “See you tomorrow for the last treatment.” She looked at me and said, “No, you have two more treatments.” I questioned that and said my schedule ended tomorrow, but she said their schedule for me continued until Monday. Bummer!
The original plan was for 35 radiation treatments, but July 4th was a holiday with no treatment and the calendar on my online medical portal had me ending on treatment 34. But apparently there are two calendars – the patients’ and the doctors’ – and they weren’t in sync. I was supremely disappointed because I had been counting down the days and envisioned going into the weekend a free man with no more treatments and only healing ahead of me.
That healing is from a full catalogue of side-effects of chemotherapy and radiation that in some regards have become an “illness” all on their own: “sunburned” neck, congested head, dry mouth, hair loss, no sense of taste, strange odors and knockdown fatigue. And recently, my platelets, white blood cells and hemoglobin had become seriously low. A man I met through the Grief and Loss Center of North Texas told me how his wife had died cancer-free but had fallen into a tailspin from the treatments and their side-effects. I wasn’t anywhere near that, but I understand now how that can happen.
Anyway, with an extra treatment pushed onto my calendar, I drove home listening to Elgar’s variations. I was doing fine until I heard the ninth movement, known as “Nimrod.” It’s the most famous of the 14 variations – Wilshire Winds and string quartets have played it as offertories on Sunday mornings – and as that beautiful, transcendent piece of music washed over me, I began to cry.
Was it from disappointment? Perhaps, but that seems silly because one more treatment isn’t such a big deal. It’s just one more hour of my life, although it postpones the cleansing from the side-effects. Or were the tears for joy, because I have so much to be grateful for: a sinus cancer that while rare has a good prognosis; brilliant, caring doctors and medical personnel who jumped on my case with a firm plan; no underlying medical conditions to throw me off track; a relatively strong constitution and drive to live; and friends and family who have kept me afloat with prayers and support. And most definitely, faith that the same God who could draw such beauty out of a composer such as Elgar has been and still is in the big middle of my journey.
So, I will endure one more radiation treatment on Monday, and THEN I will begin healing from all those side-effects. Oh wait, did I mention that my tear ducts have been working overtime lately? The oncologist said that’s a common side-effect of the radiation directed at my sinus. Maybe it wasn’t Elgar who made me cry after all.