40%

Bill came with me to my radiation therapy appointment today.  He was, of course, delighted and fascinated with the machines and the tech, generally.  Loved it.  We met with the Doc who proudly took us to his office to show us the "plan."  This is cross sections of my arm with the radiation dose imposed through swirling colorful lines.  There's only a few place where the highest doses cross the bone; however, there's points both down near my wrist and in my elbow.  And, throughout, there's the secondary dose lines that cross those bones.  So, on the one hand the radiation is highly likely (my friend Deb Rothley talked to her radiation oncologist co-worker who said 95%) to kill the cancer cells.  On the other hand, there's these long-term side-effects.  And when Bill says, "well, you'll just avoid falling on that arm/elbow/wrist" he's speaking as an athlete who might both think of that on the way down and be able to avoid it.  Not sure I'm in that group.

The good news remains that, so far, other than some GI track issues, I'm not having immediate side effects yet.  No fatigue, no sunburn.  Yea!

The hardest part of today was my state water committee meeting, where I had to talk to (and tell) a number of colleagues who didn't know about my cancer.  That's always hard.  As I've learned, I'm able to have one conversation a day.  Two maybe.  Brief mentions more than that may be possible.  But to have to go through the story multiple times is hard.  Especially when the person I'm telling wells up.  On the one hand I so appreciate that my colleagues and friends care enough to be surprised and saddened, it's hard for me to have to go into comfort mode for other folks.  Admittedly, it's easier now than it was a month ago, but it still isn't easy.