My New Best Friend

    They wanted my driver's license and my medical card; she took my picture (I can imagine what my hair looked like after a gust of wind almost knocked me oven when I got out of the car), I filled in pages of information including the names of people with whom they could discuss my case. She asked innumerable questions, like was I claustrophobic. I was getting upset. It was like I was in for a treatment rather than a consultation. I expected to be nabbed any moment, put in a straight jacket, and burned at the stake. (Or at least shoved into an MRI machine.)
    Further interrogation when I got back in the room, like I hadn't already answered all those question ten times in the last month. She gave me a new binder on radiation treatment.
    Finally the doctor comes in.

"I love you,"

I exclaimed spontaneously

after she pulled up a stool,

got right in my face slowly and loudly enunciating every word

like she was talking to an 81-year-old with hearing loss,

"I  DON'T   THINK   YOU   NEED   RADIATION   TREATMENT." 

She's the radiation oncologist. 

She looks like she's about 16.

Maybe 25; in stylish clothes

with necklaces dangling around her neck.

     She gradually toned her voice down

as she explained her reasons.

She thinks I need Tamoxifen or radiation but not both.

I have an appointment with the chemo doctor in a month. 

     I admire doctors, whatever their age or sex, who don't recommend treatment that is not helpful or needful, even if it's their specialty. Even non-profit hospitals have quotas to meet. She said that she gets incentive compensation for recruits, yet she was decent enough to recommend what is best for me.
    Last night, I studied Dr. McDougall's newsletter on the dangers and pitfalls of radiation. I didn't even get to say "It's barbaric and brutal" or ask, "Would you recommend this for your mother (or grandmother)?"
     I am so happy.
     I was not the least bit offended when she said that I'm so old that I may die of something else before I die of cancer. There are some advantages to being old. I definitely did not want radiation.
     I love my new best friend.

The Captain of the East Winds DUP called tonight.

She is fighting breast cancer for the third time.

Born and reared in Cedar City,

she is a Downwinder victim.

She had a lumpectomy the first time at age 59,

  only missing two days of work

even though she had both chemo and radiation.

Eight years later,

she had a mastectomy with both chemo and radiation.

Now, eight years later,

her oncologist found a tumor lodged in the bone

where her breast had been.

She had chemo to reduce it so they could operate.

She'll have radiation 5 days a week for 5 weeks.

Then chemo again.

For the first time she went to the Huntsman Cancer Center

where her niece is a surgeon (her partner operated).

She went to the same radiation oncologist

I did yesterday, her first day of treatment.

All three cancers different types.

"A positive attitude is your best defense,"

she advised me.

Last May while driving up 2nd North,

at our intersection (Country Way)

some kids going to the Prom pulled out 

and hit them, flipping their car upside-down.

Both she and her husband were wearing seatbelts,

neither were hurt seriously.

A fireman who lives in the house on the corner,

helped her get out of the car without breaking her neck.

After that, she had surgery on her arthritic shoulder

and was still in therapy

when the cancer was rediscovered.

Yeah. What was I complaining about?