Braunstein Speaks

Thoughts on a Sunday Morning

It has been my custom for some years now to watch the Sunday morning talk shows, specifically NBC’s Meet the Press, and ABC’s This Week. At some point in the morning, my generator starts up and runs for about 20 minutes just to keep its juices flowing. (It’s been about three months now since we last had a power failure, but I look forward to the weekly “sound of freedom,” even if I don’t notice it half the time.)

Haiti, of course, is still the big news, and neither NBC nor ABC wishes to bring up this Tuesday’s Senate election in Massachusetts, for to do so would have embarrassing questions come up that Democrats would rather not discuss.

My own calendar for the next two weeks suddenly cleared up last Thursday when my medical oncologist joined my radiation oncologist’s opinion that it is time to reevaluate my course of treatment.

My right leg has received as much radiation as thought prudent, and a considered plan for a more focused radiation was dismissed because my degraded leg has lost so much mass over the last two years, that there is no reliable way to ascertain how many centigrays of absorption any one area has gotten. The fear now is that any more radiation will cause ulcerations that will not heal—essentially making my right leg one large, open wound.

I have undergone four different kinds of chemotherapy since last summer, all thought to work on small-cell cancers such as Merkel, but the lesions keep multiplying.

We are now awaiting a consultation with an oncology group outside the hospital system where I have been treated since the onset of the cancer, and this outside group requires a ton of paperwork that must be assembled before an appointment can even be made.

Frankly, I can use the time off, but I don’t feel comfortable without a plan. My disease has been treated very aggressively since its onset without as much as a week passing without something to consider.

Back to everybody else’s life. Tuesday might be a red-letter day in the Democrats’ calendar if Mass. State Senator Scott Brown takes the “Kennedy Seat.” President Obama can duck under the Haitian earthquake if he needs cover, and only God knows where Conan O’Brien will end up.

Tonight, Jack Bauer reemerges on “24,” a drama I’ve tried to get into several times; but it always eludes me because of events, that in my experience, can’t happen in the way the storyline moves.

Anyway, I will keep an eye to the sky and an ear to the ground (so to speak) and grab anything interesting that comes up to write about—until I have more to concern my thoughts.

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