Words

While lying on the treatment table today, I had more difficulties with the “bite block” that I wear in my mouth under my mask. I needed to cough, but it is impossible to cough with that contraction pressed into my mouth. It is hard to explain, but it is a most uncomfortable feeling.

I was praying but after that coughing sensation I knew I had to do something else to distract my mind. I started wondering how many words were in my vocabulary. I started counting and arrived at a few hundred, and before I knew it, the treatment was over. So, I figured I knew at least a thousand words.

That led me to do some surfing on the web. I found a study by “The Economist” magazine from 2013 that found that the average native-speaking adult has a vocabulary range of 20,000-35,000 words. Wow! I must know a lot more words than I imagined. 

That intrigued me, so I did some more surfing and from a study done by the University of Arizona I found that the average adult speaks 16,000 words per day. Now I found some other stuff about women speaking more words per day than men, but I am not going there!

Ironically, today in a phone call after my treatment someone called my attention to this verse - Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. - Ephesians 4:29

After my surfing tonight I have been thinking a lot about how many of the 16,000 words that I spoke today were not pleasing to the Lord. 

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.  - Psalm 19:14

Half of thirty three

Today I had my 17th treatment of 33. 

Yesterday I  finished my 16th treatments, but I have 33 total treatments. So when did I get to the halfway mark?

That question bothered me today during my treatment. As the therapists started working on me I couldn’t relax  until I figured it out. 

I am just like that. For example, if I’m getting up at 6 AM I never set my alarm for precisely 6 AM. I set the alarm clock at 5:57 or 6:06. Long ago Cheryl stopped asking me why. 

When you’re reading a fast-paced novel, have you ever tried to set the book aside for a couple weeks before finishing the last chapter? I have frequently done that. Again, Cheryl no longer asks me why, but I’m going to tell you: it teaches me discipline. 

And yes, I do the same thing when watching a good movie. I can stop just before the climax and come back to it after a few days. Cheryl never lets me do that when we watch a movie together.

I also like to watch multiple movies during the same period of time – meaning I will start one movie, watch part of it, and then go to another movie and watch part of it, and, then, maybe watch part of the third movie all within an hour or so. 

At least a few of you reading this are going to say, “Larry is weird!” Maybe. 

I like to think of it this way: indeed I am different from other people because I am the way God created me. When I was a kid one of my Sunday school teachers taught me a song that goes like this: Look all the world over there’s no one like me, no one like me, no one like me. Look all the world over there’s no one like me. There’s no one exactly like me.

When I stand face-to-face with the Lord in heaven I think he may ask me a question like this: Larry, why did you not spend more time being like I created you instead of trying to be like someone else?

Oh! How did I figure out when half my treatments were finished? It was easy. While strapped down to the table I estimated the halfway point of my treatment today and then celebrated all by myself being halfway through my 33 treatments 

P.S. when I eat a piece of pie I always eat the point of the pie last!

Photos

Google has not made any improvements on blogger since I set up this account in 2007. I can’t post photos now on blogger, so  I have posted some photos on my Instagram: Larry Cox 354.

I am trying to set up a new platform for the blog but I am having difficulty and need some help to set it up. In the meantime, thanks for checking out the photos on Instagram. 

Hotty Toddy

There are four gantries at Emory Proton Center. These are gigantic treatment areas that look like the nose of a giant space capsule. Each one has a different color. You will recall that I wrote a few days ago about my Cameroonian friend, Ndipku. He is in the purple gantry. I am usually in the orange gantry, but sometimes when the therapists get behind or there is a snafu in some of the technology, they will move me to a different gantry for that particular day. 

So I am usually in the orange treatment room, and there are five therapists who are on different shifts so that three of them are there at any given time. 

As soon as I walk into the treatment area the therapists are busy getting everything ready for my treatment. I climb onto the table and lie down. They put a wedge under my knees so that my back is more comfortable. They pull my gown down across my abdomen so that my ”tattoos” (actually Sharpie marks with tape over them) are visible. These marks are important as they assist in aligning me in the same place each day. 

I lay my head in a custom-made head rest. They place the hand pegs in place that I will hold onto firmly during the treatment (to help keep me from moving). A therapist hands me my bite block, and I place it in my mouth and pull my lips around it to get it set properly. This mouthpiece keeps my mouth in the open position during the treatment. 

Then comes the “piéce de resistance” comes out—the alien mask. After it is clamped down tightly, my table whirls out into the center of the gantry.

During this process I am talking with the therapists trying to get to know them. I asked the young lady about her education and we talked about that. Then just before they clamped the mask on me, I asked the young man named Rueben where he went to school. He said, ”Ole Miss.” That got me so excited that I sat up on the table and yelled out, “Hotty Toddy!” That was very uncharacteristic for me because that is the title of a famous Ole Miss jingle that has a couple of words in it that are not a part of my normal vocabulary. 

Nevertheless, when I said that Rueben said, ”You went to Ole Miss, too?” We delayed the treatment talking about him growing up in Pearl and about Mississippi stuff. 

Every day the Lord gives me a small gift that makes the treatment go so much more smoothly. Thank You, Heavenly Father for all the small things that You provide for us on a daily basis that many times we either don’t recognize or don’t acknowledge that they came from You. 

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. - Romans 8:28

He knows all

As I was lying on the hard polymer/metal “bed” in the radiation gantry today for my treatment, I was thinking about all the technology involved in giving me three 20 second bursts of proton therapy. Radiation oncologists, physicists,  and other medical personnel calculated the exact dosage of proton radiation that my affected area needs, the correct angles, the amount of time—all according to my position on the table and my involuntary breathing. 

In the basement of the building where I get my treatments is a giant machine that costs $150 million. This cyclotron is 220 tons of metal shaped like a hockey puck. The cyclotron’s magnets and electric fields can accelerate subatomic particles to 60% the speed of light. It fires the protons through 100 yards of computer-guided piping into four treatment rooms. 

While I lie on my bed in my treatment room, a 100 ton motorized gantry is controlled by the metrics set up for my treatment. The whole gantry spins around to adjust the machine to send protons to my salivary gland from three different angles. All of this is guided by three radiation therapists specially trained for this technology. 

Lying there today, I was impressed by all that education and training of the medical staff and all that expensive equipment that was designed and built by some very smart people. Moreover, I was overwhelmed by the fact that I am allowed to have a personal relationship with an omniscient Heavenly Father who makes all this possible. Thank you Lord! 

Dry mouth

Since my diagnosis of salivary gland cancer, I have learned much about the salivary glands. For those of you who like details my cancer is in the left submandibular salivary gland. When the surgeons performed the neck dissection, the incision started behind my left ear which exposed the left carotid salivary gland. Most cases of salivary gland cancer occur with the carotid gland and not in in the submandibular gland. 

All of us have experienced some degree of dry mouth. Most often when we are anxious or worried about something, our mouths get dry. Some like me breathe primarily through their mouths while sleeping, so we wake up in the middle of the night with a dry mouth. 

I can recall being nervous about something—an exam, a confrontation with a loved one or friend or an annual job review. The anxiety made my mouth dry and very uncomfortable.

I have dry mouth day and night now, but it is not caused by anxiety or nervousness. One of the side effects of the radiation treatments is dry mouth. I am not anxious or nervous about these treatments. Certainly, I don’t look forward to them with the bite block stuffed into my mouth making my mouth quiver and the rubber mask stretched so tight around my face and shoulders making my jaw bones ache. But I have complete peace about them, so my dry mouth is not caused by anxiety but by the treatments. I have confidence in my Lord who is with me in the quietness during the treatment. Thank you Lord that you promised that we don’t have to ask you to be with us because you are already with us in every situation at all times. 

Today I will have my 12th treatment. I have completed one third of the treatments—11 of 33.

Real men cry

While we were living in Richmond, Virginia, a mutual friend introduced me to  Dr. Walter Mills and his wife, Sue, in 2002. We were not able to spend much time together until a couple years later when we moved to Georgia. By that time Walter had retired after a lifetime of helping people through his practice of dentistry. After retirement, he helped Sue and their daughter, Lori, with Sue’s interior design company. 

Over the years Walter and I have become close friends. I am the oldest of three boys, and I never had an older brother. I have often referred to Walter as my big brother. Walter had his third stroke and has been hospitalized for the past eight days. His mind is sharp but his left side is paralyzed. 

The Lord put me in Atlanta for my proton therapy at this time so that I could help take care of Walter and Sue. Sue has not left Walter’s bedside, so I have been taking care of their pets and things at their house during the week while I am in Atlanta. I am visiting with them each day, and it is sad to see my “big brother” lying in the bed with a feeding tube, and unable to communicate verbally. 

Walter’s left limbs are not functioning, but his right hand grip is still very firm. That’s the hand that has taken care of thousands of his patients in over 40 years of dentistry. As I stood there today holding his hand, I told Walter that when I grow up I want to be like him. He wanted to communicate with me, but his words would not form with his mouth. But, he communicated completely. He started crying. I started crying. Our hearts were in tune and the communication was clear.

Walter will be 89 on Monday. 

Two angels

I am driving into Atlanta on Mondays and then back home after my treatment. On Tuesday, I am driving back to downtown Atlanta and will return home on Fridays for the next five weeks. Today’s drive was awful. Anyone who has driven in Atlanta knows what a mess the traffic is. Well, when it rains, it is exponentially worse. It rained all day, so it was a stressful day.

Complicating the stress level was visiting my friend in the hospital. Dr. Walter Mills is a retired dentist, and he had his third stroke in the last few weeks last Thursday. He and his wife of 60 years, Sue, are dear friends of Cheryl and me and our entire family. Walter’s situation is not good, and it breaks my heart to see him lying in the bed with a feeding tube and unable to talk or move his left arm and leg. Sue and Walter lost both their children in their early 50s from heart attacks—just one year apart. 

While visiting with them today, a nurse came in to get his vitals, and he spoke English with an accent. I recognized that he was probably from French-speaking West Africa, so I just randomly spoke to him in French. He turned quickly to me in a big smile and spoke to me in French. Raoul was from Cameroon, and he had been in the USA for 4 years. We had a good visit, and as it is in most cases when I meet a West African in the US, it is like we have been friends for a long time. Raoul lifted my spirits on a dark day. 

Each day when I arrive at Emory Proton Therapy Center, I go to the men’s dressing room, put on my gown and wait for one of the therapists to call me back. Today, a new face appeared in the doorway calling for me. I introduced myself to him and he told me his name was Ndipku, so I greeted him in French, and his face lit up with a huge smile as he responded to me in French. He was also from Cameroon and had been in the USA for 12 years. As we entered the treatment gantry speaking French with one another, the other two therapists were asking what we were speaking. I don’t think either of them knew that Ndipku spoke French. 

During my treatment I was praying and thanking the Lord for making me feel so much better about the dreary, stressful and painful day by sending two angels to brighten my day. While praying I realized that I was wallowing in my dreary day while making no effort to encourage  anyone else. Our problems and challenges are never too big to keep us from encouraging others in Jesus’ name.

May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, - Romans 15:5

Cats

I’ve never been really fond of cats. I think it has something to do with how quietly they move about – almost like stalking you. I’m not allergic to them although two of our children are. However, they all know I don’t like them!

Over the years cats have done some very nasty things to me – like in my car, like in my luggage, like in the bed of the guest room of friends where Cheryl and I were supposed to sleep, etc. Don’t think I need to go into more details here!

When the girls were young we had a few cats, and I tolerated them as outdoor cats. One of them had a habit of climbing up under the hood of the car to get near the warm engine in the winter time. Usually, when we came out of the house to get in the car, the cat would quickly exit the car. One morning when I cranked up the car there was this giant thud. I knew immediately that the cat had encountered the fan belt of my car. Not a good ending for that cat.

Cheryl was completely surprised 12 years ago when I brought home a cat. A farmer had a goat I wanted to add to my herd, and when I was ready to buy it he said there’s one condition—you have to take a cat home with the goat. He told me to be careful because the cat was wild.

So, I showed up with a solid black cat that the farmer had put in a mesh bag with the top securely tied. I carefully untied the mesh bag because I was afraid with my luck that the cat would attack me. I turned it upside down and the cat fell out and jumped out of the truck and hit the ground running with both of our dogs right on her tail.

The cat ran up a tree to a height of at least 25 feet. Cheryl looked at me and said, “Well, aren’t you going to get it down?” That was the wrong thing to ask me. I responded that I had no intention of getting it down and when the cat was ready to come down that she would come down by herself.

Of course, that sparked a bit of family anger as I was the bad guy who wouldn’t get the poor cat down out of the tree. There was little consideration given to the fact that I couldn’t even touch the cat with my 24 foot ladder much less get it down. The next day the cat was still up the tree. And, then the next day it rained and the very wet cat came down out of the tree. 

One of the granddaughters named the cat “Viola.” I don’t know where the name came from, but 12 years later we still call her Viola. By the way, I have learned to love Viola because she keeps rats and mice out of our garage. On cold winter nights Viola sleeps with our two dogs—one which chased her up that tree 12 years ago. If only people were able to forgive and forget like animals. 

If you are tired of my cat stories, you can stop here. If you are game to read one more, please continue...

When we were leading workers in Northern Africa and the Arab world region, my good friend, John, and I were visiting a family in a country in the Sahara. They were having some challenges living in a very desolate, dry and dirty place, and we had come to encourage them and to talk about the future for their family. 

John sat down in a chair in their living room, the couple sat on a sofa and I sat on a love seat. After only a couple minutes of sitting down, all of a sudden some wild thing jumped on my back and dug its claws into my neck and scalp. I reached up and grabbed the varmint and slung it with all my might across the room. The wild thing was the family cat! 

With no regard for my welfare, the couple ran to their traumatized cat and started loving on it. And my colleague and friend, John, well, he was so startled that he was just staring back and forth between the couple holding the cat and me. The only apology I received was this statement: “He’s never done that before.” Wouldn’t you know it—the feline fanatic chose me to attack for the first (and probably only) time

X-ray vision

When I was a young boy, like most of my peers, I loved comic books. Television was in its infancy, and the most popular kid’s program was Howdy Doody. Most boys want to be entertained by more adventurous programs than Howdy Doody. Fortunately, at one of the local movie theaters on Saturday afternoon I could watch a double feature of westerns for the admission price of six RC Cola bottle caps. To this day that was the best bargain for entertainment ever! 

So comic books provided most of the entertainment for 8-12 year old boys while I was growing up. My two favorite comic books were Superman and Mighty Mouse—two superheroes. Mighty Mouse started coming on TV on Saturday mornings and no longer was Howdy Doody the King of kid’s TV.

One of the things I like best about Mighty Mouse and Superman was that both of them possessed X-ray vision. I was so intrigued with this superpower. Cereal boxes and special offers on the back of comic books offered promotions on “real X-ray glasses.” Yes, I fell for them, and, yes, I was totally disappointed with the product.

X-ray vision meant that you could see through something or someone. I was reminded of all this while I was waiting for my proton treatment today. Surprising what all goes through your mind when you are about to be zapped with a daily dose of radiation.

I could have had all my radiation treatments in Rome, Georgia, and slept in my bed every night if I had chosen the traditional external beam radiation therapy. Those beams are measured doses of photons that go through your body. Marie Curie and her husband, Pierre, are responsible for discovering this medical procedure over 100 years ago. Treating tumors and cancer cells with proton beam therapy is only a couple decades old.  

Traditional x-ray treatments are more of a blast that goes through your body just like Superman’s x-ray vision. Proton therapy is more like a laser that stops at its target. Therefore, with protons less damage is done to tissues, organs and other vital functions that may be near the radiation. 

God doesn’t want to see through us like traditional x-rays. God’s gaze on our hearts is more like proton beams. His gaze does not see through the heart; he looks inside the heart. He just wants to cast His holy eyes into our body and focus his examination on our heart.

The condition of my heart is critical to my walk with the Lord. 

It does matter

This is not my first proton therapy rodeo. I had proton therapy treatment for my prostate cancer in 2012. At that time there were only nine places in the USA where one could receive this type treatment. The closest to us was Jacksonville, Florida.

Some friends had a beach house in Jacksonville beach and offered the house for us to use during my six weeks of treatment. It was a radiation vacation for Cheryl and me. The time together was sweet for our marriage and for our spiritual growth-and it was fun to walk on the beach everyday.

A takeaway from my first treatment at Emory this past week was this: OK, I met my radiation oncologist, and he has been practicing head and neck medicine for 30 years, and I felt really good about him being my doctor. But, where did these kids who are actually administering the proton radiation come from?

On Friday for my second treatment, I entered the treatment gantry and this lovely young lady, who was one of the radiation therapists who would administer my treatment, greeted me and asked what type of music I would like to have played during my treatment. I was not focusing on music! I was focusing on how to keep from moving, how to keep my tongue pressed against the bite block in my mouth, how to keep from coughing and most of all how to focus on something other than the discomfort and claustrophobic sensations of the mask. I replied, “It doesn’t matter.” She said, “Would you mind if we played Christian music?” I said, “Of course not.” 

The music helped relax me, and the time passed much more quickly. It did matter! I was so grateful for the young lady, but I was also grateful to the Lord for using her to help me feel so much more relaxed for the second treatment. From now on, I will tell them that I want Christian music played during my treatment. 

Isn’t it great how the Lord uses people to help us in our time of need. I was also very mindful of the training and expertise that these young therapists possess to enable them to administer radiation from a $180 million cyclotron in just the right places to rid my body of any cancer cells. 

“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.”  Colossians 3:23-24