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.