New day

My husband has undergone his radiation oncology treatments for one week now. He went Monday through Friday at 8:15. The first day was a little awkward because the procedure was new and he was unfamiliar with what to do. By Friday he was in and out with ease.

He has complained of diarrhea and fatigue and then today mentioned a restricted urine flow, but all in all it has been a symptom free treatment so far.

He will meet with the doctor for the first time since treatment started next Monday. I don't know if I will be included in the meeting, but I will certainly give him a list of questions that I want him to ask. I want to know if the delay in treatment could have allowed the cancer to spread. I want to know if the increase in the PSA for the first test done in May 2009 and the one in Jan 2010 is cause for alarm. I want to know what his prognosis is. I want to know whether if he had started treatment immediately if it still would last 43 days.

I am feeling better today than I was the last time I wrote an entry to this blog. I have not availed myself of all the information available in the internet about prostate cancer or its treatment and possibilities difficulties.

Keep tuned. We have 37 days to go. Send all good thoughts and positive energy to my husband the the people who are caring for him and saving his life.

Reaction to technology

Isn't technology great? Everything that yo ever wanted to know is on the internet. You can open up your Google browser and read about the Donner party or David Gale . . . or prostate cancer. My husband has prostate cancer that he is finally getting treatment for. . . That is a long story that I won't tell, but suffice it to say he was diagnosed last year and just started his 43 days of radiation treatment.

When we saw the doctors last year they seemed to feel his was not a very aggressive form of cancer and as a matter of fact of the 12 biopsies taken there was cancer cells found in only one. So the delay, while frustrating, was not fear producing.

My husband has had no ill effects from his cancer (as far as I can tell). He has been just as active as before the diagnosis. As a matter of fact after the initial shock receeded there were times that I completely forgot that he had it. He went back recently for another PSA test and found his PSA had gone up considerably in the 9 months between initial diagnosis and the start of treatment. That was a shock because honestly I just KNEW that the powers that be and the goodness of the universe would have cured him.

That didn't happen so now he is in treatment. . for which I am grateful. He has to go 43 consecutive days (minus the weekends) for radiation treatment. He went for the first time on Monday. Today was his third treatment.

I went with him on Monday and was relieved to see other men with a spring in their step coming out of the radiation room. Two men came out of the treatment room and told their wives that, "Everything was on target." That the doctor had, "Looked at the pictures and everything was fine." Likewise my husband came out of the treatment room unscathed (on the outside as far as I could tell.)

He seems a bit tired these days. Is it because he stays up too late and then has to get up early in the morning to go for his treatment. Or is it because of his treatment, because the radiation is doing something to him (other than killing the cancer cells in his body)? Or is it because he read information about side effects of radiation on the internet which mentions fatigue and the suggestion has worked its evil magic on him? Who knows.

I am an optimist. I KNOW he will be fine. He really HAS to be, mostly because I need him to be and wouldn't know what to do if he was not. But also because he is strong and otherwise healthy and receiving good medical care.

But tonight I was looking for his blog to see if he had added anything new and saw many other prostate cancer blogs. I got sucked in- that's what technology does to you-and started reading the stories of other men with the same disease that my husband has.

Their stories were not filled with bouncing steps or positive comments from the doctors that everything was on target, rather they were laced with pictures of shingles and tales of chemo, diary entries of surgical procedures and tubes and more treatment and depression.

I KNOW those things are not in my husband's future. I wish no one had to experience them. I also wish I could go back to the wide eyed innocence I had before technology informed me of all the things that COULD happen.

Now I am feeling tired and scared - and they were not even effects that I read about. No wonder my husband has gone off to bed at 8:00. I'm turning off the computer, getting away from all the information that awaits me at the click of a button, and going to bed too. I'm just going to be still and try to forget.

I had not seen this image for some time and it is surprising the emotion that it envokes even with the passing of many years. One thing that I notice about it is the size of the plane in comparison with the building. The plane looks almost like a toy which makes the destruction that happened hard to believe.

It could be seen symbolically as the insignificant group of radicals going after the stolid giant of America represented by a towering building. I doubt the photographer had time to think about that, but the image could be read in this symbolic way.

Looking at the picture with hindsight, I see the end of an era- the end of innocence and the feeling of impenetrability which had covered America for decades. Probably not since the McCarthy era did Americans have their civil liberties quashed as they did after 9/11. The government began to spy on citizens in order to prevent this atrocity from ever happening again. Security quadrupled and now old people have to remove their orthopaedic shoes before going through metal detectors when they want to fly. People have their name on 'no fly lists' sometimes in error.

The airline delays and inconveniences are just one example of consequences of the 9/11 attack. The United States got retribution on the attackers by starting a war on Iraq--you'd have to ask the President for his rationale on choosing Iraq rather than attacking where the terrorists came from, but that is a whole 'nother political discussion.

If we could follow the trickle down effects of the war we'd probably ultimately find a child in a rural school built by railroad tracks which shakes when the trains rumble past. The government has found other uses for our tax money than to provide proper education for the children who are the future of the country.

The image shows a tiny plane about to impact a towering building, but the story is much more than the image shows. It doesn't show the long term effects and it doesn't show the near term effects of families losing their loved ones, or the personal decision that some had to make--to stay in the building and burn to death or to jump. It doesn't show the final phone messages that were left when people in the building knew their death was imminent and wanted to leave final words for their loved ones. It doesn't show the effects on people left behind or the effects on the firefighters and other rescue personnel who saw the destruction close up.

The hate and desperation behind the acts is something that is not supposed to be felt here in America. We are the land of the free and the home of the brave. We take the poor and hungry to live on our streets paved with gold. We are supposed to be immune from terrorist acts which happen in other parts of the world almost as a matter of course. I think the affront woke us up and I am sorry to be awake. I liked America when we lived in innocence. . . and some would say ignorance.

Picture

I chose this picture of the dead soldier by Mathew Brady because it is striking how death equalizes us all. This is a young man who should have his whole life ahead of him, instead he is a body on the field. He does not appear wounded. If it was not for the uncomfortable position he is in he might be asleep.
I looked Mathew Brady up on the internet and found that he was notorious for taking credit for others' photographic work AND for moving bodies into a position which might have greater viewer impact. He would also place props in the picture for more impact. I believe that he sometimes would pose a Confederate soldier with Union weapons. I was told to look closely at the canteens that are with the soldier. The one in his bag is of one type and the one on the ground is a totally different shape. Perhaps that is an example of mixed props.
The image made me stop and think how short and violent life can be and I suppose the impact is the purpose of Brady's posing his subjects. I don't think that it can be called documentary photography if he posed his subjects with props for more effect. You could call it portrait photography. Documentary photography is supposed to tell some truth, part of the truth told in Brady's images is manufactured for maximum benefit rather than the reality of the situation as he came upon it.
My husband, who was a photojournalist, and I had a discussion about the posing of the subjects and whether if they were posed it was TRUE documentation. In my opinion if you are documenting the aging process (for example) and you photograph a person over a number of years in the same pose you are documenting THEIR aging process (granted not the aging process in general). But Brady's image is completely manufactured as the soldier has no input into whether he wanted to be photographed in this bunker or where he lay originally. I'd be interested to get feedback about the idea whether posed subjects can be documentary work or whether the image has to be spontaneously captured to be truly documentary.

Project ideas

I did my blackboard post on lack of female leaders in the Catholic Church. I feel strongly about that issue only becuase of its inherent unfairness. I do not attend Catholic Church or any other for that matter so it does not personally affect me. If they had female priests I doubt very much I would return. There is so much corruption in the history of the church that I find it difficult to be a supporter.

The other issue that I am really interested in is how disability affects one's identity. This is an unresearched thought, but it seems to me men have a more difficult time adjusting to disability, even aging, than women do. That may be a stereotype that I have bought into, but it seems like men bemoan the diminishing of their former strenght. Maybe women never used their physical strength as much so the loss of it is less jarring. So given that my father who is 76 and my husband who is 53 both mention the things that they 'USED to be able to do with ease and now it's so much harder' I can't imagine that men who suffer a physical disability through accident or war would not have a hard time reconfiguring their identity in light of their gender.

The other issue I am interested is female poverty. I think there are statistics which back up that there are more females in poverty than there are men in poverty. Many times women are single mothers and have the added responsibility of providing for their children.

Those are my ideas. I am happy for any feedback on any or all of them.

My House

I LOVE my house. It is old and run down and I absolutely LOVE IT! My husband and I bought it almost 5 years ago. It had cracked plaster walls and red shag rug throughout. There was a place on the living room ceiling that had been patched once because there must have been a terrible flood from upstairs.
We bought it and I started cleaning it because that is what I do. I started on the stove. there were YEARS of grease stored in that stove. I got it all clean--finally-- and noticed that the plug was sparking when water hit it. Why? A rat had eaten through the insulation on the wire--I was tempting death by electrocution!
My husband said, "We'll patch the cracks and paint it and it'll be beautiful." I started picking at the walls till they came tumbling down. Let me tell you that plaster is HEAVY. One garbage can full at a time, out it went. Then there were none. . no walls no ceilings. . no red shag carpet.
When you strip off the top layer there can be beauty and opportunity behind. We have beautiful heart pine floors and new electrical wiring and new plumbing. Some rooms have walls and ceilings now. We have a beautiful kitchen and built in bookcases in the family room (all thanks to my wonderful talented husband), but there are some rooms that still have potential, but no drywall.
I LOVE my house. I love the squeaky floors and the fact that there are no 90 degree corners. And I love my husband for doing all the work he does without getting overwhelmed by the immensity of the job (like I do sometimes).

Image

READ and you will LEARN. You just click the icon to post a picture. Who'da known!!