A Feel For Horses

  I haven’t been writing much lately and there’s a reason. I got sick. Seriously sick. So, here’s the latest in the journey of a rookie throat cancer patient trying to make his way through a dark and putrid swamp called chemoradiation. And the going’s been a little tougher than what I’d been expecting. By the way, I’m editing this chapter during the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend. My original intent was to write about the events surrounding my disease as close to real time as I possible so I could better relay my feelings of the moment. However, the last two weeks have kept me occupied with health concerns which resulted in a short stay at a local oncology intensive care ward and six pints of blood. Crazy as it may sound, I haven’t had a lot of extra time to gauge my feelings. In fact, I’m not even sure I had any emotional feelings. I’ve been more of a robot in survival mode. But now I have time as well as feelings. As for the moment, I feel amazingly good with an energy level I ...

  I told a white lie while writing my last chapter. Sorry, but I suspect we all speak an untruth now and then, maybe a couple. But in all fairness to me, I think mine was a pretty small one in the scheme of things. I lied when I said I wasn’t all that worried about having a feeding tube surgically inserted into my stomach. And there really was a part of me that wasn’t all that worried. But that part was pretty small. The larger part remains horrified by the thought of laying semi-naked on a metal gurney in a sterile, brightly lit white room while some stranger and company cuts me open. That particular fear will likely always be my truth even though I know they’re trained professionals, even though I know their highly experienced, even though I know I’ll be fast asleep and unaware of any pain, and even though I know that hardly anybody checks out from feeding tube complications. However, I have since learned from talking to friends and acquaintances, it must be a primordial fear...