by cg on November 30, 2006
One of the interesting things about current events at gulker.com, is how a relatively overwhelming life event distorts one’s perspectives. It’s sort of like Einstein’s relativistic events close to the event horizon of a singularity. Little things can take on enormous, distorted importance, while big issues are dismissed as a nit. For example, a small frustration, normally a blip in the noise of day-to-day existence, becomes a trigger for a full 3-year-old style meltdown by a 55-year-old man.
Time becomes strange, passing glacially at moments (e.g. while stuck in an MRI machine) or blasting past so quickly you barely know what just happened (the period from first diagnosis to surgery to today). Linda and I both have had our share of these events, recently.
I understand perfectly, rationally, what has happened to me: I also understand it from the perspective of my faith. It’s as if I have a kind of quantum duality of understanding of this brain tumor. A thing can be both a particle and a wave, depending on how you look at it in quantum theory. My tumor is both a possible, but relatively low probability event in the realm of macro physics, and a consequence of free will granted by a Creator I can’t pretend to understand.
I can’t pretend to understand quantum physics, either. So both trains of thought – rational, scientific Chris, and creature-of-faith Chris – merge at this singularity, the tumor, where things become very, very strange, regardless of which perspective you happen to take. Sometimes one helps me understand and make my way, sometimes it’s the other. It’s like quantum experiments with photons passing through a slit: sometimes it’s more helpful to look at them as quanta, other times as waves.
Either way, small things sometimes get big near the singularity: e.g., an unplanned event like trying to return a defective hard drive (as Linda and I did today between medical appointments) becomes an ordeal, even when the clerks are trying to be helpful. Time stretches, elongates, the event begins to overtake all of life at the moment. The reality was that it only took about 15 minute to return a failed LaCie 500 GB external HD at the Apple Store, and get a new one which, having been installed 2 hours ago, works great (and silently). Perhaps I should document these events and try to quantify the effects and consequences: I already have a small database on Google spreadsheets tracking my seizures and current meds dosages….
by cg on November 29, 2006
Fingers crossed, but I can’t tell you how encouraging this news is. And we only had 5 yesterday. That’s down from a peak of 24 seizures a day 3 weeks ago…
by cg on November 29, 2006
It was one of those mornings where the clear Eastern sky showed little color as the sun rose. The Western sky, however, had a rose hue, as seen here behind a couple of deciduous oaks – not Coast Live Oaks as I earlier thought, which are evergreen.
Cassie and I are in our third day of RTDS (Return to Dawn Service), and did the 2.1 mile corral loop easily. I’m feeling good – only 5 seizures yesterday, including a spell from 4 PM yesterday until just past 7 AM today. (Woo hoo!)
It was cold when we rose, a bit under 40F, and there was frost on nearly every open patch of field or lawn. We met Kate, a plucky, British member of the dawn community, who gave me a hug and told me a cheery story about a neighbor with cancer who was twice told he had months to live, and is now 7 years past that prognosis. I like stories like that…
by cg on November 28, 2006
The dawn sky was very pretty this morning as I made my way around the Stanford corral. I bumped into good dawn community friend Judy, who was kind enough to halt her jog and walk with me for a quarter mile or so. Judy is a lawyer and very organized: I don’t usually think of ‘Judy’ and ‘random’ at the same time.
But, random events, aka noise, are not necessarily bad things. The scene above, which some may find pleasing, captures many random events. The pattern in the high clouds, the trees, the sun, at a certain essentially random angle and moment create an interesting picture.
I’m going on about noise because it’s something I’m dealing with daily: I have better and worse days as I deal with brain cancer. I’d like to say every day I feel better than the day before: I wan’t progress, I want to be better every day. However, there are days, Sunday was one, when I just don’t feel very good.
I think this is sort of like a stock chart. If you look at, say, Apple, over time, the trend is clear. But if you’ve lived with the stock, as I have for some 12 years now, you know that there are better and worse days. It’s only over time that the trend becomes clear…
by cg on November 27, 2006
As I made my way home from the Stock Farm stop on the Marguerite Shuttle’s B Line, I arrived at this very nicely lit scene. Minutes earlier, a small squall had raced through, bringing swirling winds, a noticeable drop in temperature and a light dusting of rain.
It reminded me of hiking trips in Yosemite with Linda’s father and namesake stepson John. John, the elder, would say no hike was complete without a storm, and he loved those moments as we quickly pitched our tents while the wind rose and whipped the bush and trees and you could smell the rain that was to come.
Looking at this picture in my den (aka gulker.com World HQ), it occurs to me that it tells my story just at the moment: uncertain sky, much darkness, but a shining path that I tred one step at a time. Forgive the amateur prose hour here, but this photo really does sync with my current state of mind…
by cg on November 27, 2006
Chris, Lisa and Angela (L to R – Debbie was camera shy) are the radiation therapists and nurses who run one of UCSF’s two Siemens Mevatron linear accelerators (the one that’s set up mainly for brain tumors). I think of them as the angels of the radiation oncology lab, a place where I’m spending a lot of time lately. Given their job – they deal all day with very ill people – they have amazing spirit and cheer.
Weekdays, I descend 3 flights of stairs adjacent to the ER ambulance entrance, and make my way through a small maze in the basement of Long Hospital to the radiation oncology men’s waiting room, after checking in with Mr. Jew at the front desk. Chris, Debbie and Angela are busy and their work is very demanding – you don’t want to make mistakes when you’re pointing high-energy electron beams at people’s heads. They nevertheless manage to be genuinely cheerful and upbeat: a bright spot in these sometines long days.
Today I brought my digital Leica: previously I brought the now-ailing, much smaller Pentax. They had fun taking pictures of me, pinned to the gurney by a radiation mask, and I finally wrangled all 3 into a shot in front of the Mevatron (above). If you find yourself in need of radiation therapy for your brain, allow me to recommend UCSF…
by cg on November 27, 2006
I rose at 6:00 AM this morning for the first time since surgery, with Linda who has maintained the dawn patrol that has been a cornerstone of our 25 years together. We walk together the quarter mile or so to Sand Hill Road, then, at the bridge over San Francisquito Creek, we part ways, Linda heading off on a 4.3-mile circuit around Stanford, while Cassie and I walk the 2-mile loop around the Stanford corral. (Since the Pentax died, Linda carries our only small camera: she photographed a beautiful sky ove Roble field on her trek).
This morning I was greeted with one of those experiences that takes you back to boyhood: on the construction site of the new practice golf course, a small team of men were pulling down the old corral fence (one that I’ve come to know these past 17 years). A group of 4 men with hammers had removed most of the long, horizontal 1×8 boards, leaving a long row of 4×4 posts in the ground, some straight, but many canted at the wacky angles decreed by time and circumstance.
A Bobcat appeared, gunned its motor, and charged directly down the row of posts, its bucket held a few feet above the ground. The posts snapped like match sticks: the Bobcat stopping only when it reached a gate that had beefy concrete posts. Watching the Bobcat knock down the posts was just plain fun. Heh, guys really do like stuff like this… this guy does, anyway…
by cg on November 26, 2006
Those words, ‘work and pray’ were the motto of Taunton school, wher I spent the 1969-70 school year. They speak to the 2 essays I’ve been trying to write for weeks now, one about work, the other about faith. It seems like everytime I’m ready to begin, there’s a new development: the NY Times Science supplement had a long article on Science and faith last Tuesday: previously Time magazine had the topic on the cover, as did Wired.
This week I intend to be disciplined: I’ll write about work on the train up to UCSF, and write about faith on the way back. It’s unusual to write two essays at once, and it probably seems like folly not to concentrate on one. The themes are not totally unrelated (nor closely related, either) but this feels like the right way to go about this. I reserve the right to retrench should that become desirable…Â
by cg on November 26, 2006
For the first time, a seizure actually woke me, at midnight, followed by one at 12:30. Both were a bit less mild than had been the case all day. After that, I slept until almost 8:00 (thanks, dear)… I can get used to this 8 hours without a seizure routine…
