Finally, Another Story

It is time that I try and write some non-hospital stories! After all, I do not go there right now, or hopefully, I do not have to do so now since my next time to meet the doctor is in May.

My medical program ended several weeks ago but it takes anywhere from 1 to 3 months for my body to repair itself after all that was done in the forty days of radiation treatment. Remarkably, very little of it actually hurts me at all. The big issue that I am dealing with is my tiredness especially after the last fifteen days of getting treatment at the hospital. It had changed slightly over that period of time. Nevertheless, that change did wear me out a lot more than before.

There were some interesting stories that I did see in the media that I want to talk about today. As I am sure that you appreciate, it brings me back to my “past” life now. Here are a few of them which I would hope you will find interesting.

Liberal Irek Kusmierczyk

It should be interesting to see how the career of the ex-Member of the Windsor Council works itself out now that he has been elected a federal MP for the Windsor-Tecumseh riding. Who knows, there might be some positive thinking about him. I just saw that he has been appointed as a Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion.

I was surprised by this because he was just elected for the first time federally in an election and he did not win a huge majority either when he was elected. Perhaps the Liberals figured out that he needed some good publicity if he is to be re-elected since another election campaign could take place in a couple of years because of the Liberal Minority government being defeated. That would probably mean calling for one. Nothing better than convincing those voting people to vote for a “Parliamentary Secretary” and not just some MPP.

Interesting, here is his past election history story when he was a Councillor that might even repeat itself now:

“Irek Kusmierczyk returns to council with a firm victory in the Ward 7 race, edging out the next top contender Angelo Marignani.

Kusmierczyk earned 3,761 votes, compared to Marignani’s 2,539 after all 103 polls were in, which is a decided improvement from the 2013 byelection when the two ran a close race that Kusmierczyk won by just 52 votes.

Kusmierczyk had the advantage in this campaign after nearly a year’s worth of exposure on council, but the energetic politician knew early on he could take nothing for granted.” (Derek Spalding, WindsorStar, October 27, 2014) 

Why not do it again would make a lot of sense to him I would think!

I connected myself to his Facebook webpage to see what he will be doing over the next little while from a political perspective. He seems to be doing a lot of very good things right now and we will see what results are achieved by his efforts.

Speaking of local politics on the municipal level, did you see this article some time ago that:

“Municipal politicians across Windsor and Essex County are pleased the province has decided not to force amalgamation on municipalities.” (Chris Campbell, CTV Windsor, October 25, 2019) 

I am surprised that the Government is not still requiring amalgamation as seemed to be what was going on for such a long time. What was interesting in that story was seeing what I think may be a difference between the City of Windsor and one of the suburban areas where I happen to live now, Tecumseh:

“Tecumseh Mayor and Essex County Warden Gary McNamara is glad to hear the Ford government is moving away from amalgamation…

Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens points out there are already shared services across the region – highlighting the city's police force taking over patrols in Amherstburg.

"We saved the Town of Amherstburg over half a million dollars a year and we're saving about the same amount as a city," says Dilkens. "So the more folks we can spread the fixed costs across the better it is for folks not just in Windsor but in every town in Essex County."

WHO CARES TO LIVE IN WINDSOR, ONTARIO

You might find that it will be a lot of people from all over the Province! Especially locations where houses are so much more expensive.

It is hardly a surprise to me that Windsor real estate prices are so low in comparison with other locations around Ontario.

When my family first moved down here so many years ago, the real estate market was rising significantly but Windsor’s housing prices at that time were still a fraction of those in the City of Toronto where we were then living. Our new home in Windsor was bigger in size and land space compared with our house in Toronto but our purchase price here was a small fraction of what our sales price was in Toronto then.

Obviously, the move down here was financially better for us. However, one of the concerns that I did have when we moved here was what would happen if we could not stand living in Windsor and had to back to Toronto. Fortunately, that did not happen!

I assumed that prices would rise dramatically here so that Windsor’s prices would be comparable eventually to those in Toronto. Clearly that has never taken place! My old house in Toronto is still worth now many times the value of my place in Tecumseh where I moved in the last few years.

It is interesting to me that the lower prices in our area are not all that bad. If one is living here, and will continue to do so, and if there is a mortgage on one’s property, then the monthly amount to pay out is relatively reasonable. It is certainly a lot less than what the mortgage on a comparable home in Toronto would be as an example.

What is even more interesting is that people from more expensive homes in other areas may well be looking for a cheaper place to live. After all, people who are getting older are seeing their children leave their home to live on their own so that their “big” house is not all that necessary for them any longer. Seriously, who still needs a big three or four bedroom house with lots of grass to cut and snow to remove from the sidewalks and driveways when the kids no longer live there? Oh sure, they can find a cheaper place to live where they now have a new house that is smaller in size. However, the amounts that they still have to pay out in taxes, home insurance, utilities and perhaps even on a mortgage that they still have on their property would be a lot higher than the prices in our area.

There was a very interesting story written about this. Just take a look at the article by Jonathan Pinto, CBC News, August 1, 2019: 

“Yes, Windsor's property tax rate is high — but that doesn't mean we pay more…

With a property tax rate of 0.61 per cent, Toronto ranked as the city with the lowest property tax rate, while Windsor's rate of 1.78 per cent placed it dead last…

Joe Mancina, Windsor's chief financial officer, says comparing cities by property tax rates alone is "misleading."

"You really need to consider the property tax rates as well as the assessment values," he said. "In municipalities that have higher assessment values ... naturally, the tax rate is going to be set at a lower level."

Mancina says that Windsorites actually pay lower residential property taxes on average than other large Ontario cities.”

Accordingly, when someone in a city like Toronto sells their house at such a high price and buys a comparable home, or, even better still, a smaller one in our area at a significant lower price, then that makes Windsor and the surrounding towns a nice place to move to. That family all of a sudden has a nice chunk of money in their bank account down here in a similar residence.

It will be interesting to see if that really happens. One may find that house prices in cities like Toronto do not increase very much in the next while while they still go up here dramatically as people from outside the area, as well as people here still looking for a new place to live, compete financially to buy a place for sale in this area.

It's All Over

Please excuse me for not posting more articles on here about my visits to the hospital. I had to go there for radiation treatment to deal with the cancer condition that I had. I have to admit that I just did not feel like posting an article, whether it had to do with my medical situation or something completely different, as I have done so many times before as a writer. I had something more important that was impacting me so dramatically during this time period.

However, it all ended at the end of November. Accordingly, let me tell you quickly what happened during this time period so you will understand what I experienced with my condition.

Believe it or not, I had to go to the hospital every day for about two months for medical treatments. They started in the beginning of October and ended on the last Friday in November. I had to make all of these trips to have radiation treatments undertaken to help fight my disease. I had some negativity in my body that these treatments would attack. However, I believe that a lot of what I was doing was to prevent anything worse from happening because of this situation in the future.

In all, I went five days a week for just over eight weeks [NOTE: There were a few official holidays that interrupted the program since this section of the hospital completely closed on those days]. I officially had forty visits that I had to go to the hospital for treatments. I went every week from Monday to Friday. This part of the hospital was closed completely on weekends so I did not have to go then for radiation. In fact, I was told that this made medical sense since it would allow my body to rest for a couple of days each week.

Interestingly, I was told that, even though I am not taking any treatments now, my body is still reacting to the radiation that entered into my system and will do so for the next several weeks. In other words, I might still be having some negative matters taking place that could affect how I feel but so far, knock on wood, I am not feeling anything bad.

The length of time for my forty medical treatments may seem quite long to you. I have to admit that it seemed extremely long to me at first and I was not sure how well I would do while undertaking the program. I have to admit however that I cannot believe how quickly it all seemed to be completed from start to finish even though I spent two months going to the hospital. It just seemed to take place so fast

Each treatment took about 10 to 15 minutes once I entered the hospital treatment area. That was also a big surprise to me because I expected it to take much longer. I had heard before that it might take as long as an hour to be completed. Nevertheless, when one has to drive into the City to go to the hospital and then drive back home after the treatment was finished, several hours each day is taken up by this medical service.

Something that was very interesting was the time of day when I had to go in for the treatment. I asked before it all started if my attendance could take place at 10 AM or a bit later every day. I knew how my body acted every morning and wanted to make sure that I was not going to suffer otherwise. In the vast majority of the visits, my timing took place around the time that I had asked for. However, there were several occasions when I had to be there at around 7:30 AM in the morning for my treatment. I got up every morning at about 4 o’clock to prepare to go in at that time. Some of the people told me that their hours were sometimes pretty crazy with one appointment late in the day and then the next one early in the morning.

I do not know the reason for this weird change in time but I expect it happened because of one of the important issues that took place just after I started attending for my appointments. Normally, the end of the day for treatment there was around 5:00 to 5:30 PM. However, it changed dramatically after I started attending by extension of appointment time by about two hours, or in other words ending at around 7:00 to 7:30 PM each night. The number of new cases increased dramatically I was told.

I have no idea how long this should carry on. Clearly, there is something very dramatic happening with respect to the number of people who are so ill now. Can you think of what may happen as even more people get older and, just as importantly, if more older people move from other cities to the Windsor Area after they retire. What will happen once a new hospital is built that is about the same size as the hospitals now and some of the existing hospitals are closed down? How will a substantially increased number of patients be treated at that time?

If you want to know what my condition is like now, I wish I could tell you. I have not got the faintest idea be honest about it. My last appointment with one of the doctors there, since my doctor was on a Sabbatical for a couple of months, did not give me all that much information about my condition because that doctor did not have anything that he could talk to me about.

The strange part about everything is that my next appointment with my doctor at the hospital to discuss my condition after all this treatment will take place in May of next year. The reason for it was quite a surprise to me. It will take anywhere from one to three months for all of my testing results to be finalized so that the doctor can decide what my position is. Obviously, if there is a concern, I would be called in a lot earlier. However, and I am hoping for this, if there is no serious negative change in my condition then there is no need for me to meet with him until that time. Of course, I will have to have some blood testing undertaken before I return to the doctor for him to review my condition then but my hope would be that my situation was a good one if I did not have to see him for such a long period of time.

I do believe that, even if I am in good shape at that time, I will still have to take tests periodically in the future to make sure that nothing negative is starting all of a sudden. Or, if my situation is getting worse, then I hope that I will be able to start taking a medical program right away to minimize the impact of anything that is coming on. With the program that I have with my urologist now, it is supposed to carry on for about two to three years. I expect that I will have something similar with my cancer doctor.

Let me just talk about one other matter. The employees of the hospital who looked after me were completely fantastic. As I said, I had forty treatments. Each of the treatments had at least two people who were working on it. I did not have the same two people attending each of my forty sessions. Rather, I probably had some people treat me only about two or three times if they were in the senior position or perhaps up to six times if they were in the junior position in each session. In doing a “Patient Survey” to let the senior hospital people know a bit more about my dealings in the Radiation Therapy Department, I filled in one of their forms. I am not going to set out everything that I wrote but just this which I wrote and sent out so early in my process:

“I am about halfway through my 40 sessions in the Department. In fact, I just finished the other day my first meeting with my doctor after my sessions started in order to bring him up to date on my status. I let him know that, in each session, I have been treated so well. I expect that I have seen quite a number of different employees who have handled all of the sessions. Each one of them has dealt me in a very professional manner, making sure that everything about me is working out well…

It should be obvious that my health matter now is much more serious to me than anything before. Certainly I am concerned myself, but I am just as concerned about how my wife and children are able to handle my terrible situation. I do not want them to suffer as well because of what is happening to me. Once again, the remarkably positive way that I am being dealt with by the Radiation Department staff has made life so much better for them and relieved them of many of the difficulties that they are having to face right now.”

There you have it. Now you will understand what happened to me over the last two months while I had my treatments being taken. There is no doubt that I was sometimes unbelievably worried about what might happen to me. Fortunately, the people involved treated me so well that I felt so wonderful as the program was carried on so successfully.

I better get myself back into order and start writing articles for my Webpage!

My Latest Cancer Treatments

I hope that you read my previous article: “It Has Officially Started.”  I just wanted to tell you what happened to me as I started getting involved with the treatment that is necessary to help me fight the cancer within my body.  One would think that everything would now be perfectly fine for me.  But of course, that was not the truth!

I must admit that I was truly shocked about what happened to me at that first session at the hospital as I wrote in the article.  I could not believe that it took place.  It just seemed so out of the ordinary for me.  I expected now that I would be perfectly fine for what was to come as I was going to be treated for my disease.  Was I ever wrong!  Again.

Let me tell you what occurred.  It had nothing at all to do when I was in the hospital room being treated.

As you know, dear reader, I am supposed to have forty sessions of radiation treatment that, hopefully, will do quite well for me medically.  I learned from experience that it is not anything spectacular that I had to do while taking the treatment.  At first, I expected that I had to do a lot which would take each session about an hour.  Instead, all I have to do is lie on a special platform for about five to ten minutes in total to have some radiation treatment applied to my body in the correct location to fight the cancer tumour that I have.  It is not such a big deal when I am there.  Heck, I do not even have to put on special clothing but just move my pants a bit so that the radiation machine can attack the cancer exactly where it is located.

Given that, why would I be so excited, negatively, in the first place!  Let me tell you what occurred.  Thinking about it now, I can hardly believe that it happened.

It did take some time between my first visit to the hospital that I talked about previously and the beginning of my forty days of radiation treatment to take place.  However, once I was given the day of going to the hospital to start my actual treatment, events took place that were unbelievable to me then and still are.

About a week or so before that first day, I started to feel unwell.  No, it was not the feeling of a cold or some medical condition like the one that impacted me so significantly several years ago.  It was really only a slight pain on the right to middle side of my front body around my waist and also in my back.  Oh well, I thought, I may have hurt it a bit or pulled something when I was doing my exercising.  I expected it to go away way quickly.  However it did not.  Instead, the pain grew significantly.

A short time later, I started to experience a lot of difficulty.  The side and back of my body really hurt a lot and I was in much greater pain as time passed.  Here it was happening just before I went to hospital and I was so concerned that it might ruin my first trip there.  I really expected it to go away but it did not.  In fact, I wound up spending a lot of time in bed just resting to try to counter the pain that I was experiencing.

Let me give you an example of exactly what I mean.  I had to go to my bank to set up some new accounts there.  I wanted it done as quickly as possible before I went to the hospital since it made good sense to do so.  In my physical situation now, it was almost impossible for me to go.  I could barely stand up out of my bed and then walk as I wound up doing!  Yes, dear reader, it seemed that I had a very serious disease now.  All I could take were baby steps as I was doing my walking.  It hurt that bad.  

I was not sure exactly what I should do now.  See my family doctor?  What about my urologist?  Or maybe go to the hospital as an emergency?  Or just stay at home and try and relax to ease my pain caused by something.  

Then my daughter called me on the telephone.  I had not told her about any of this before because I did not want her involved.  She had her own personal issues from a medical position with which she was now dealing.  She hardly needed some more medical problems to make her even feel worse.  Nevertheless, she phoned me and I had to tell her what was going on.

She was a completely different person it seemed.  There was no panic on her side at all.  After all, there was no discussion with her about her conditions or whether something that I was experiencing was impacting her, negatively as well.  Instead, she was now acting as my professional counselor.  

She talked me through what I was experiencing and to try to understand with me why it was happening.  There was no panic in her nor any suggestion that I immediately go to the hospital for treatment.  She and I talked for some time about everything that I was experiencing to try to help me deal with my situation.  

Amazingly, she acted perfectly.  The truth came out, something I could not possibly understand until I spoke with her.  Everything that troubled me so much was not physical at all.  Rather it was mental, going on in my head that made me panic so much.  It is amazing that once we started talking this way I could feel my pain disappearing so quickly.  By the end of our conversation, I was in a much better state.  She did a tremendous job in talking with me in getting me to reveal to myself that I really was not experiencing anything medically wrong but rather that it was something going in my mind before my first visit to the hospital for treatment.

When I was ready to go to hospital for the very first time, I told my wife that I was in much better shape after speaking with my daughter.  I was actually in a good mood, ready for my day number 1 out of forty.  She had accomplished so much for me in such a short period of time.

Of course, there were other small issues that arose since I started taking my radiation treatments with which I dealt.  Nothing all that significant in comparison but nevertheless something that I had to resolve.  Let me just tell you about one of them quickly that was resolved by one of the radiologists who was looking after me.  I am telling you about it because it was a big surprise to me about one of her responsibilities as a hospital radiologist but one I never expected at all.

After her radiology treatment of me ended and she was still in the radiology room, we started talking and I mentioned to her that I was dealing with urological symptoms.  That troubled her immediately.  She started asking me a whole bunch of questions that surprised me.  I never had a radiologist do something like this before.  She told me that she was going to immediately contact my hospital specialist and tell him about what happened and was going to make a suggestion about what should now take place for me.  She told me that I should expect a call from the doctor’s office within a few hours telling me what should be done.  She told me that she thought I would have to take some medication because I had a urology issue.  

She was absolutely right.  I received a call from the doctor’s office to tell me that I should go to my drugstore to pick up some pills which they I just ordered for me and believed I required immediately.  In passing, let me tell you that I am not urinating as often now!

I still have, dear reader, a lot more radiation treatments I have to go through.  Oh, I have heard of some of the negatives that could happen as is usual in this kind of treatment process but not to worry too much about them.  They are not all that bad with which to deal.

The good part that I am experiencing that makes me feel so wonderful is the people with whom I am dealing.  They are amazing!  All of them, including family and the hospital staff, are acting in ways to make me feel happy with a good result in sight, hopefully, in the very near future.

Just A Bit Of Medical Treatment News

I just thought I should let you know in a brief note what is going on with me medically right now since I have not posted too much on here recently.

Only a few weeks ago, the Hospital set up the beginning of my forty time radiation treatments that I am supposed to experience to deal with my cancer condition. The real hope that I have is that I will have very positive results after this radiation program is finished. It would help solve the medical issue I have now.  To let you know, I have just had a few sessions and will talk about it later in another article in more detail.

I have to admit that I was not exactly certain what was going to happen. The reality, I believed, was that I had a one hour period set aside for each of my sessions. However, my actual program each time only would take much fewer minutes. Naturally, I assumed that it took lots of time to set me up in front of the radiation machinery and to end each test. It did not.  I thought I also had to undress and dress up again before I could leave the radiation room.  Again no, since I could stay in my clothes after all.   The reality was that my actual session was only about 15 minutes. 

It did not surprise me that I have had to have something to drink and perhaps eat to recover from other types of medical events recently. I expected, given what happened previously, that I would probably be quite nervous in each session. Just remember my condition after I went to the hospital the first time to start this program as I wrote previously.  Again, the reality was different.  I was not very much nervous after experiencing the first session.  However, I still do go for a nice treat after the session ends.

Enough about this right now. I will let you know what happens after my initial bunch of sessions as best that I can. Depending what happens, I will keep you up-to-date also on the other visits I make if something interesting happens.

80’s Wedding

No, I am not going to be writing about something that happened in the 1980s.  Rather, I am talking about the big night for my daughter, Melissa, and her husband, Bill, who joined together a little while ago.  

My wife, Marsha, and I want to let everyone know how well everything was set up and organized for this special night.  The event that was created was based on the kind of wedding that would take place during that earlier time period.  It was just such a perfect night.  

What is most fascinating is that it was set up and organized by Melissa and Bill.  It did take a lot of time to organize it properly.  They worked so hard at making sure that everything was done properly so that the people who attended would have a good night celebrating their future.  I know that they visited so many possible suppliers to find the best ones.  Obviously, it took them time to set up also the events that were to take place that evening as well with their chosen groups and to make sure that everything would carry out properly.  

We worked with Melissa and Bill to develop an evening that we hoped everyone would enjoy.  However, they were the ones who went out and made the effort to work very hard to find the right people to provide all the services required in an excellent fashion.  Their expectation was that everything would be provided in as best a manner as possible.  When they made decisions, they came to us for approvals which we easily gave them because what they had done made so much sense.

To be direct, they were unbelievably amazing in what they accomplished.  From start to finish, the timetable in our meeting room was followed perfectly.  No wasted time at all.  The service providers carried out their functions in about as excellent a manner as was possible.  The dinner was just so excellent given the food to eat, including the extras as seconds of my choice of the best dishes that I was able to eat.  This is what Cortina Gourmet Market does.  Unlike many meals that I have eaten out, the food actually was quite hot when I ate it!  As for pics, Simon Wyn, the photographer, was so excellent in what he did.  He even sat near us during dinner.

The people who had to play an entertainment function also did so exactly as was necessary to keep the guests happy.  Especially I remember the fellow, who acted like Bernie the “dead man” in a movie, who unbelievably had “passed away” and remained completely unmoving until he was carried out of the meeting room.  

Given my relationship with Melissa, I was the “Father of the Bride.”  

Believe it or not, that put on a tremendous amount of pressure on me during wedding night.  And even in the weeks before.  I was the one who walked her down the aisle to the spot where she and Bill officially joined up together.   It was my task as a parent of the bride to make sure that they were united that evening. 

It was really not an easy task to do.  I remember when we were the only two people outside waiting for the official music to start so that we could walk down the aisle together.  We both talked very quickly with each other saying all kinds of wonderful things while we were there.  A few hugs and big smiles on both of our faces accompanied at the same time by lots of tears in our eyes.  It was the combination of her great future to come along with remembering our wonderful relationship in the past.

Just as an aside, it was a very important event for our family.   Without making a big deal about it, I am sure that you know, dear reader, my medical condition right now.  That was something that was learned just a few months before the wedding ceremony.  Regretfully, it was something that we had to deal with while at the same time something wonderful was going to take place.  I am so pleased to say that all we considered was how this is going to be a great night for Melissa and Bill! 

Melissa and Bill really should set up a business to run this kind of an event.  They did such a nice job for all of us who came out.  The whole evening when this event ran was beautifully handled.  It was not a gigantic project with lots of people but rather one whereby the most attached family members and friends were invited to attend.  It was interesting to see how many people actually came to the site about an hour before the event started.  To be honest, the room was almost completely filled up with guests about thirty minutes before the ceremony was officially to start.

I am not going to go into a long discussion about the ceremony that took place between Melissa and Bill.  The ceremony was so touching.   As for me, everything was so exciting to watch.  I was so involved in seeing and hearing what was going on!  Everything was right to the point and well done.  Each of them made a wonderful presentation of the vows which they read to each other.  If you want to see what they said, please go here:  Bill & Melissa's Wedding Vows  

There is a lot more that I could tell you about the evening but I do not think it is necessary for me to do so.  All that I want to say is that this was a fantastic evening for everyone who attended the event.  Most importantly, I was so happy about what happened to Melissa and Bill in front of all of these people.  I was the father of the bride and so pleased to be there with my wife and son.

It Has Officially Started

As you will read in this article, it hit me a lot harder than I thought possible. After all, I am a tough guy and always am pretty sure of the consequences of what I thought might happen to me. Based on what I knew, it hardly seemed like a difficult situation that would put me in a serious state.

Yet, I broke down!

As I am sure that you know already, as I have written on here before, I just learned recently that I have prostate cancer. Fortunately, it did not seem very serious based on what I was told by my usual specialist doctor, a urologist, whom I visit regularly who is experienced in this area. This was told to me also by the cancer specialist whom I had just met at the hospital in Windsor, a radiation oncologist. I also had just visited with my family doctor around this time who seemed quite positive about the state that I was in.

Oh sure, I was put on a system by my urologist doctor in which I would receive a vaccine needle injection once every three months for 2 to 3 years. Then, my new cancer specialist was to put me on a system of receiving radiation treatments for about forty days shortly ie 1 treatment per day for 5 days per week for 8 weeks. Hardly a big deal. I might suffer a little bit of hardship like diarrhea or tiredness from the radiation but not very much otherwise. No need to worry a lot at all.

By a matter of coincidence, appointments had been set up which, on the first day, was one with my family doctor while the one on the next day was set up in the hospital to have some tests done before my major program there was to start.

My family doctor appointment was really one that had been scheduled a long time before and was my usual medical appointment that was set up to look at my medical condition yearly. We spent a fair bit of time talking about the cancer situation I was in. She was very positive about my state of health and about what was to take place thereafter in a very short period of time. Her records seemed quite positive now about my condition.

As an example, several months ago a test was taken on my system and it showed that my PSA results had literally skyrocketed upwards.

“PSA, which stands for Prostate-Specific Aantigen, is a protein produced by the prostate gland. It is present in the blood of all men at low levels, but PSA levels often rise, sometimes dramatically, in the presence of prostate cancer.” (Healthfully)

She told me that it had risen from a very low amount to over “50.” That amount was unbelievably high. Here is what it should have been:

“For men over 70, healthy PSA levels will usually range between .4 and 17.8 ng/mL, with an average of 8.9.”

We spent a good bit of time talking about it and I have to admit that, after the session, I was in pretty good spirits. Naturally this would happen since she showed me a report that was undertaken after one of the tests that I did that showed that my number now was about .7! Quite a drop in a very short time.

Let me jump forward now to my big session at the Hospital. I had seen my cancer specialist there before. However, this time to me really was the first time that I was going to be “officially” looked after there. Sure, I expected to be there for quite a number of days for treatment but I did not feel all that nervous or upset about starting. Or so it seemed to me.

Of course, there was a bit of a problem starting off. I found out that I was going to have this issue every time I was going to have treatment there. I had to take Phillips Milk of Magnesia every night before and then a treatment drink of 500 ml of water before I left home as part of the process of being treated. Not only toilet time but who the heck wanted to be so full of water that one needed to hold for a longer period of time than normal.

I met first with a wonderful lady there whose job it was to talk with new patients and their family members and let them know about what was going to happen. More importantly, that person had the responsibility to answer every question that she was asked by the patient and other family members to make everyone feel a lot better before the medical process would start. She was given a considerable number of questions to answer by my wife and my son who were with me and by me. She did a great job of answering to make us all feel a lot better.

Then, my family members were asked to leave our meeting room and some of my tests were to start immediately thereafter in a different location to where I had to go. It all took about twenty-five minutes with a whole bunch of tests involving all of the equipment that I will ultimately be using as part of my forty days of medical treatment. The rooms were huge there as was all of the equipment under which I would be located.

It was a bit painful given my medical shape but not all that hurtful considering how much time we were there and what had to be undertaken to make sure future testing would work out properly. I learned that the equipment usage would really only take a few minutes per day so it should all work out quite well even if there was a little bit of pain.

I lay down on the "bed" feature of one of these big machines. It did not have a nice, soft mattress but rather a rather hard metal covering on which I lay down. After being in that position for so long, it took a bit of effort for me to sit up again. Fortunately the medical people there helped me do that.

Then my shock happened. All ready for me to leave since everything was finished, right. Regretfully, I could not do it. I completely and totally broke down mentally! My mind just stopped working.

I do not understand why it happened but it did. I did not feel this way at all before I attended at the hospital and especially before I started taking these tests. I seemed to be quite okay, at least to myself. I now completely lost control of myself and became extremely emotional after this testing was finished.

I was lucky that my medical person was there to help. She and I talked together for about fifteen to twenty minutes as I was choking up and talking about all of the horrific experiences that I experienced especially over the last five years or so. I could not believe that I was now experiencing my past so strongly even though my medical people had told me that I was probably in pretty good shape now.

I talked about almost dying with that virtually unknown medical disease that I experienced between Christmas and New Year’s day several years before. I talked to her about my fears about dying now when I wanted to be alive to help my family members for as long as I could. It all hit me so strongly even though everything seemed now so positive for me.

All that I can tell you is that this wonderful medical person who was there made me feel so much better once I spilled out what was troubling me so much. She was so good in listening to me and then talking with me to help me find an answer. My actions were so unbelievable in desperation that her job must have been designed as well to meet the horrific experience that I had now and am sure many other hospital patients suffered at the same time. She did magnificently in making me feel so much better very quickly.

I really do not want to talk much more in this article about what happened because it is not necessary. I am better now and so happy that I met my new friend at the Hospital. Heck, she escorted me back to find my family in the waiting area and made sure that I was given a nice cup of tea so that I felt better before we got in our car and left for home.

Now you, dear reader, have it all. End of article!