December 4, Hilltop

I dreamt last night that I was driving along the shoreline of a lake.  (It should not surprise us that even in my dreams I am driving.)  It was a beautiful but cold day.  I was pleased to come upon a view, looking off a hill, to a beach below. There were people swimming, launching small boats, and otherwise having fun.  Once pleased, I was no sooner horrified to see, amongst the children in the water, great chunks of ice, and to look further out from shore at snow covered glaciers drifting inward.  I was compelled, in my dream, to take a photo.

Angela tries to do a few things each day.  Yesterday, with brave determination, she enjoyed a manicure at a  spa in Stirling.  Later she prepared her cloths for the upcoming week.  She is a picture of contentment and energy in these tasks when suddenly she says, "Yep, I think I have exhausted my 5 minutes of energy."  We were warned that fatigue would be a prominent side effect of radiation therapy, and it is.  The trick, it would seem, is not to fight it, but to work with it.  In her "becoming bear" Angela has found an animal's rhythm, quite in keeping with Rocky's, whose long day stretched in front of the fire is punctuated only by the occasional and brief exploration of the meadow.

We have returned her steroid dose to its original level, because after reducing it, the pain, numbness and weakness in Angela's arms increased noticeably.  Alas, we will try again soon.

At night she enjoys listening to The Sacred Bridge, a beautiful compilation of christian and Jewish music of the middle ages.  Like angels singing from another world, it reliably brings her to tears.  "You cannot not cry," she says...but this I know.   Proust, The Sacred Bridge, and each other, we have the right company for these tearful moments, and we choose the right moments.  We also watched part of a movie last evening, Pirates of the Caribbean.  Johnny and Penelope were good company too!

And so, within a week, we both dream of swimming.  December 15, the day after Angela's last scheduled radiation treatment, marks 15 years that we have been together.  At the outset of our relationship neither of us expected we would be so lucky.  Perhaps we didn't know the extent to which we shared the same dreams.  We also couldn't have counted on the encouragement and understanding of so many very good friends over the years, friends with whom we intend...to keep in touch.