To my supprise, I’m still sitting up and taking nourshment and I count that as a victory for today. I can remember wondering what motivates the elderly people in our midst. Now that I’m fully qualified to speak on the subject, I think it is the desire to see another day. When she was in her early eighties, my mother, a Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher, asked me to tell her a reason to live. Stunned, I said “curosity and a sense of humor”. She did not find that satisfactory. But I haven’t found much conversation about this kind of thing; end of life decisions, I mean.

I’m going to just treat this locus of time and space like a journal and write about my experience as I go.

It seems like a very long time ago that I last made a contribution to my diary. I aged 10 years in Febuary and part of March while I spent a total of about 6 weeks in the hospital; most of it in ICU and RCU. Much of the time I was in an induced coma while the medical team struggled to get control of my heart rate, blood pressure and white blood cell count.

I learned that the people who took care of me were extraodinary. They did unplesant jobs with great heart. I can only marvel and thank them. They saved me from immediate termination and bought me more time. Thanks to the doctors, RNs, LPNs, Technicians, Orderlys, and house keepers for their excellent work and positive attitudes while doing it. I know that the whole world has begun to recognize the debit we owe people who dedicate their working lives to the well being of others in the pandemic that is COVID-19.

I had grown cynical about the medical field and its financing. I have put that down now.

I am six treatments into a course of 45 sessions of radiation to treat prostate cancer and once again think I can see a horizon instead of being limited to the immediate. Perhaps foolishly, I feel the tiny seed of optimisim sprouting within.

I don’t like the feeling that this post should have a black border around it but I want to be straight forward about the circumstances that have a bearing on my views. Be mindful today.