An update on my cancer. I have a lot to be thankful for!
Radiation: Complete! ✅
A week ago, I had the last of 33 doses of x-ray radiation to my arm, administered 5 days a week at Emory in Atlanta. That's 3 hours of commute a day, leaving at 5am.
But my wife and my best friend Michael took turns going with me, so I got to spend a lot of bonus time with them. And family and friends have called, sent notes, brought us food, and prayed for us. And Elizabeth and the kids took on extra load to give me early bedtimes and naps as needed.
The treatments themselves were painless and only near the end did I start getting fatigue and some sores, which should start healing in the next week or so. Otherwise, I feel pretty good - I can work and exercise and do normal stuff.
I'm thankful for treatment and for people who love me!
No spread that we know of
According to research, surgery plus radiation is the most effective way to kill the tumor we found. What we don't know is whether it has spread microscopically elsewhere and may crop up in the future.
I did have a clear full-body PET scan on June 17, so there was no cancer big enough to see at that point. I have another scan in a few weeks and we'll continue monitoring long-term.
I'm thankful to be OK so far!
Technology is amazing
After my PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scan I wrote this:
The technology behind a PET scan is incredible, sci-fi sounding stuff. According to my chat with an AI: somebody early this morning used a cyclotron to build a radioactive isotope of flourine, F-18, then chemically built a glucose look-alike that contained it. That was injected into my body right on schedule and taken up by cells in proportion to their energy usage. The F-18 decayed with a half life of 110 minutes, initially emitting 360 million antimatter positrons per second, which collided with electrons in my body, annihilating each other and producing gamma-ray photons. The scanner picked up those photons and its computer used them to build a map of which areas in my body were using a lot of energy, overlaying that with a 3D model it had built using x-ray imaging, and the radiologist looked for hot spots of energy usage which would not be normal in the body, and might therefore be cancer. Praise God for the common grace of amazing physics and people who could figure out how to do all this!
My radiation treatments were also cool: precisely focused and targeted using an $8 million machine, based on a 3D model of my arm and real-time measurements.
I like to imagine the doctors and physicists and engineers and software developers who built these tools. How incredibly satisfying that must be.
I'm thankful for all this technology and for access to it!
Death Isn't The End
I still hope to live to see my grandkids. But even if I don't, I'm thankful that I don't need to fear death. This passage from the New Testament letter of 1 Peter has been especially good for me.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith--more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire--may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
1 Peter 1:3-9 (ESV)