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Facing the outcome of cancer surgery and Beck's "Waking Light."

2/3/2018

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It takes a long time to resurface after surgery.  Even now I am a little woozy.  I am home at last after eight days in hospital.   It is time that I composed a post that describes my outcome.

The palliative procedures went brilliantly.  The urinary diversion and hysterectomy was fine.  I did not need a total vaginectomy, only a partial which is conventional for hysterectomy. Unfortunately, the vagina and rectum were fused by scar tissue, and needed to be separated, so now I have a temporary ileostomy.  I called my previous ileostomy Flipper in The Cancer Olympics. Flipper #2 may or may not be reversible.  I will know in about 6 months.

But the really bad news was that cancer cells were found in my pelvic sidewall.  This is inoperable. The culprit for this invasion was indeed the right internal iliac node, as suspected in The Cancer Olympics, which implies that I was stage IV all along.  It was already too late for me seven years ago, thanks to Doctors One, Two, Three and Four. My surgeon Carman held my hand as he delivered this bleak news. 

Carman holds out some hope that further chemotherapy might help me.  We will discuss this in February, when I meet with my oncologist in several weeks time.

Today’s song is by alternative artist Beck: “Waking Light.”  The hyperlink is to a live performance on The Tonight Show.  This song was one of the finest releases on Beck’s masterpiece 2014 album Morning Phase for which he won the Grammy for the Best Album of the Year (snatched from under the noses of Beyonce and Ed Sheeran).  He also one Best Engineered Album and Best Rock Album of 2014. “Waking Light” is a psychedelic song about emerging, about waking up.  It resonates with me for how it feels to surface after my long surgery, with so much unknown, and so much ending, and so much beginning.
 
Waking light
Your profile in shadow
Raise yourself to the morning alone
Night is gone
Long way of turning
You've waited long enough to know

When the memory leaves you
Somewhere you can't make it home

When the morning comes to meet you
Lay me down in waking light

No one sees you here
Roots are all covered
There's such a length to go
And how much can you show?
Day is gone
On a landslide a-reeling
I’ve seen your lamplight burning low
 
When the memory leaves you
Somewhere you can’t make it home
When the morning comes to meet you
Rest your eyes in the waking light

When the memory leaves you
Somewhere you can’t make it home
When the morning comes to meet you
Fill your eyes with waking light



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    Robin McGee: psychologist, author,
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