The All-Star Break

I was talking to my massage therapist the other day (yes, I have a wonderful massage therapist, Heather, who works with my chiropractor whom I visit twice a week. The treatments have really helped, I believe, with my side effects to my chemo treatments. Thank you Dr. Tracy). Anyway, Heather is a big White Sox fan and when I told her that I had completed half of my treatments (6 of 12), she said, "So you're at the All-Star break," referring to the mid-season break baseball takes for the All-Star game. Well, that is certainly one way to look at it.

Being halfway done reminds me of something I heard years ago. It's about a guy who was standing on the shore and decided to swim to a distant island. He started out and made it about halfway before he decided he couldn't make it so he swam back to the shore. The point is from my perspective, if I've made it through half of this, I can make it through another half until this thing is done.

But Cyndy and I have talked and are leaning in this direction on a choice I hope we don't have to make again. If after this is all done, within two years, the exact same scenario that I have just dealt with happens again (new cancer detected, is completely removed by my wonderful surgeon, and my oncologist gives me the option of no chemo treatment, though he highly discourages that choice), I just might say, no, I don't want chemo again. I would continue to go through all the testing that I do to make sure nothing is developing but there is a quality of life issue that says to me at this time of my life, I don't want to surrender another 6 months to chemo treatments and the terrible things that brings about it if I don't have to. But like I said, I sincerely hope I never need to make that decision again. And I hope that because of the decision I did make this time to have the chemo helps to prevent the need to make that decision again in the future.

Treatment #7 is Monday. I would appreciate your thoughts and prayers to help me make it through this "on" week for the 22nd time. Thanks and God Bless You.