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Beam Me Up Scotty


Today was the day; one of those rare days when Dunedin is the most beautiful city on the planet: green hills; the harbour like glass; deep blue sky with the sun perpetually low so it always feels like 9:00 am; crisp and warm and still and clear all at the same time. Then, the same carpark,the same waiting room with the same magazines, the same gown, the same shorts that fall down unless you hold them up with one hand. A different machine this time though. This one was spectacularly high tech.

I was shown down a corridor and into rooms with no windows. One room had a curved desk and banks of monitors: big, flat screen, sharp looking monitors, two displaying a movie of the bench where I would soon be lying, one with a very high definition x ray photo of a pelvis, maybe mine, and another couple with columns of incomprehensible but important looking gobbledegook. Then, just down the hallway was the room with the bench itself and a machine that looked like it meant business. It was covered in high gloss plastic coatings and small glass panels. The room itself had green lasers shining from the walls. It all looked like a set from Star Trek; the radiation machine like a flying saucer on a stalk , the roof lights which came on and off of their own accord, the automatic door which made a trekkie type noise when it opened and shut.

Then I laid me down to sleep and asked the Lord my soul to keep.

They put my feet in the polystyrene blocks and precisely aligned the lasers with my tattoo marks. They drew on me with pens. They measured. They chatted. They retired from the room and said they would be back in 20 minutes and please don't move. I didn't. The bed did - precisely millimetres at a time as someone fiddling with a joystick in front of one of the monitors lined me up. And the machine did. Very very precisely. Slow purposeful arcs around me, pausing to sniff out the best spots and then to speak to me in a quiet high pitched hum -quite possibly in Klingon.

As best I could, I kept awareness of my body. I felt the life in my body and felt the hugeness of the earth beneath me as she held both me and the machine. Disinterestedly I observed the itch in my shoulder but felt no inclination to scratch it. I observed the breath at the tip of my nose and my own stillness. I was in no position to meditate but meditation techniques were very helpful both in keeping me still and in letting the whole thing pass me by without any particular emotion. I felt nothing from the process at all, but knew that a dozen or so very narrow beams were intersecting at the precise point somewhere in my lower abdomen around which the machine was rotating and that they were combining to destroy tissue; healthy tissue that would grow back and cancerous tissue that would not. The intersection point was so small I would feel nothing today or tomorrow, and possibly not until there were a couple of dozen such points competing for my body's healing resources, in another few weeks.

There were conversations with the staff before and after; I was told things I knew already but needed to hear again. Then it was out into the sunshine on Dunedin's quiet streets. Away from the Starship Enterprise and into the beautiful still clear city where clocktowers are made of blue stone and tell out the time with magnificent and welcome approximation.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Ah, the old clocktower ... the waters of Lethe cannot take away the Water of Leith.
Live long and prosper, as the Vulcans say.
He came that we might have life, but not as we know it, Jim.
Cling on to that which is good, as St Paul saith.
Boldly go into 2009.
Prayers for you and your family today.
Alden Smith said…
What! no mention of Dr Spock? and no travelling at warp speed factor 10? - sounds like daily life in a hospital, but not as we know it -

May the force be with you Luke - whoops wrong movie.

Take care, praying for you and your family this day.
Alden Smith said…
Just a thought, what shape are your ears after your treatment?
Anonymous said…
Well written Kelvin. Have been thinking of you and praying for you all day, and will continue to do so as your treatment continues. I'm only a text message away if you need anything. I agree with anonymous - live long and prosper!
Kathryn said…
Thinking of you as always, Kelvin, and praying for your good health.
I love your description of the treatment, and glad that it is painless for you. I will pray that it is successful.
Keep your chin up.
Beaming positive vibes from me to you :-)

By the way, it sounds like a beautiful day in Dunedin today. In Perth we had 36.something today, and it is going to be even hotter for the next 3 days.
A 51 year old man who was snorkelling at one of the beaches just south of Perth, was taken by a shark on Saturday. Sharks have been sighted at other beaches but people are still swimming at the beaches along Perth's coastline.
Here one minute and gone the next, with no trace. Tragic.

In His love, Kathryn
Anonymous said…
On the Jewish origins of the Vulcan blessing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_salute
Brian R said…
Prayers for you and dreaming of beautiful Dunedin without the humidity of Sydney
Kate said…
A rose to sniff, for your buttonhole and a hug to you today.
Anonymous said…
"I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year
'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.'

And he replied, 'Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!'

So I went forth and finding the Hand of God
Trod gladly into the night
He led me towards the hills
And the breaking of day in the lone east.

So heart be still!
What need our human life to know
If God hath comprehension?

In all the dizzy strife of things
Both high and low,
God hideth his intention."

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Alden Smith said…
Happy New Year - may you and your family be greatly blessed this year. All the very best for 2009.
Kathryn said…
Happy New Year Kelvin and Clemency - I'm hoping, wishing and praying that 2009 is everything that you desire.
Smiles, hugs and love from Kathryn

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