Day 8 Good days, bad days. This is a good one. Sis was able to talk to some people in the waiting room before we saw the Doctor. She leaned into a little group of them and asked, “Can I talk with you guys, I’m new to this and I’d like to talk to somebody who knows what I’m going through”. There was an older couple that just stared at her like she’d reached over and slapped them. Sis asked them, “How do you sleep? I can’t sleep at night without shaking, what do you do?” There was a young lady who told us about melatonin. She and Sis talked a couple of minutes about God while the older couple kept staring. Another lady leaned in to ask Sis, “What kind of cancer do you have?” Sis told her, “lung cancer.” The lady said, “You look good for somebody with lung cancer”, she turned to the older couple and said, “Look at her skin, she looks good doesn’t she” She does look good. You’d never know by looking at her what was going on. We finally get to see the radiation doctor. He’s a nice guy. He’s got a southern drawl; sound’s like Georgia to me. Anyway, when he starts asking questions Sis just starts talking at warp speed. He looks at me like a deer in the headlights, and I just smile at him. He keeps trying to slow Sis down so he can figure out what’s going on. He wants to hear the whole story. “When did you first notice this? How long has your shoulder hurt, how long have you been coughing?” Sis always answers these questions like this, “A week ago I was on the street, I was moving and shaking, I was making it happen. I feel fine. How could this happen?” She’s going through a phase of wondering, “Is this my fault? Could I have prevented this? What if I’d have gone to the doctor sooner?” It kills me to hear her say any of these things. It’s not anybody’s fault, especially not her. We listen to what he says. He seems to be trying to bring some hope, but that darkness is always just at the edge of the light. This is so surreal. Our lives have never been like this. We’ve always been so happy. Life was always an exhilarating romp, now it’s a struggle just to keep from shaking. The doctor ended up mapping out the spots on Sis’ back where they want to shoot the radiation. Once that’s done, we’re out of there. We have a few hours until we have to be at another place for another test. This one is a PET scan. They’re mostly interested in the liver. There’s always anxiety that goes along with these tests. It takes an hour and a half. When it’s done we head out into a glorious early evening. We do our best to enjoy it. Tomorrow is the appointment with the oncologist. <back