Linear Accelerator

For every weekday during the last two months, Dad has risen each morning to trek to The CR Wood Cancer Center in the Glens Falls Hospital, Glens Falls, New York to lie beneath a monstrous machine called a dual high energy linear accelerator to bombard cancers cells located in his prostate.

It was just a year ago I was in New Hampshire for Jerry and Jesse’s wedding. I learned that Dad’s biopsy returned not looking so good. Cancer. And while most men if they live long enough will get prostate cancer, Dad had an aggressive form the cancer. The initial bone scan seemed to indicate the cancer had already spread. As vividly as yesterday, I recall where and when I learned that further review of the scan and x-ray revealed arthritis and old WWII wounds, not the disease. Fortunately, although I was in a very public place surrounded by sailors of all things, I found a seat behind me were I could collapse in joy, tears and prayer. Still I knew there was a battle to fight which Dad and family were up to.

In those early days of diagnoses, Mike, Robin and Jennifer took turns accompanying our father to the doctors' and researching data. Men whom I have known for years came forward to tell me of their treatments. I had no idea! Dad immediately went on hormones while the family sifted through second opinions. Treatment options ranged from doing nothing, seed implants, even surgery. Dad wanted to hit the cancer with everything he could. In the late winter and early spring his PSA levels had dropped, a sign that the hormones were working. He elected radiation, determined to rid himself of the cancer and the hotflashes they caused. I had no sympathy.

The word radiation has always striked a bit of fear. Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Godzilla, bad black and white alien movies and images of Navajos digging in the mesas of Utah for Uranium come to mind.

I can’t really recall the specifics of why the treatment didn’t start earlier than forty-four weekdays ago. Something to do with the math. Calcuations one doctor did, confirmed by another and redone by a third. They wouldn't be rushed. They knew the seriousness of the prcedures. (If only Congress could operator this way.)

I wanted to get back to Hawaii in early September, but I didn’t want Dad to face the daily routine alone, especially when potential side effects could leave him fatigued beyond his extraordinary energy of 84 years. So I took a job at the track to kill some time, earn some money and be available each morning to accompany him to his appointment with the “radiation machine.”

Except every Monday during consultation with the doctor Dad seemed perfectly “normal”. He had gone kayaking or he chopped down another tree or he walked around Moreau Lake when he wasn’t moving the yard. Neither one of us could pull a chin up on the monkey bars in SPA Park, so I had to laugh whenever he complained about being tired and loosing some strength.

The only side effect he experienced was some bowel problems. In his one bathroom house Dad chased me out of the facilities enough mornings that I postponed taking a shower until he left for his “shot” as he called the dose of radiation.

Well, tomorrow is the last shot. The routine of lying on his back while he counts the machine’s cycle and listens to the changing positions comes to an end. In a few weeks he’ll have the PSA level rechecked. And before November, the doctors and Dad will confer to see if he really need to take the next scheduled hormone shot. Dr. Alex Frank says, "Good have a good life." Let's do.