Rearguard

She leads the company of White Shields streaming through the open gate, dragoons reinforced by heavy lances with a reconnaissance detachment from the Bloody Reds. These are her few remaining veterans, proud wives and mothers with silver mail and graying temples. Pennants dance from our spears as we ride to harass the retreating grendel, eager for the wind in our hair and reclaimed territory beneath our feet.

We track the grendel by the swath of beaten ground his decaying legion trails behind. Cast off equipment, backpacks, shields, helmets, anything that speeds their retreat, marks the tract like discarded toys strewn along the path of a petulant child. Through the rising dust, we spy the first stragglers strung out down the road. The grendel's forces lack cohesion now, his units dissolving into clumps and clusters. We preserve the discipline of our formation, a column abreast behind a thin screen of advanced and flanking scouts. Shadowing the horde, we maintain close contact, keeping ever-present pressure from barely out of crossbow range.

As the trail descends into the enchanted forest, the scene of so much of our recent fighting, a contingent of heavily armored hemogoblins emerge to form a shield wall across the road, their flanks anchored on well-treed knolls rising to either side. These gnarled and bandy-legged monsters hiss and taunt us, raising a roar of defiance accompanied by the cadence of their falchions ringing against the rims of their tower shields.

She studies their disposition, formulating a plan of attack as our horses shy and skitter at the noise. We could feint to either side, dismount and outflank them, force them to retreat through a series of set engagements. Instead, she chooses confrontation, a battle royal to end the grendel's final organized threat. Forming her heavy cavalry behind a vanguard of dragoons, we advance upon the enemy's line in tight formation, horns and gentle voices raised in a harmonious rendition of the company's battle hymn to counter the cacophony below.

Quickening to a trot, a canter, and finally a gallop, the sound of our hooves rolls down the hills like thunder from a swiftly advancing storm. Hemogoblins brace behind their sturdy shields to receive our charge. Just before the wall, scouts and dragoons peel away to either side, thrusting their spears at any exposed faces to sow distraction. Hemogoblins untense thinking this a probe, a mere demonstration until our hidden, heavy lances crash into their slackened shields, smashing their formation. The cresting wave of steel and horseflesh sends them reeling into uncontrolled flight, easy targets for the dragoons circling back around.

Red scouts stalk the pockets of survivors with sanguine glee. For months, the hemogoblins have predated their numbers, ambushing patrols, assassinating officers, raiding the settlements where replacements gather. While our pickets will skirmish with the dispersed clans for weeks, the war band's annihilation marks an end to the conscription of widows and orphan girls to fill her Red Company's meager ranks.

Though the grendel's remaining forces have melted into the sanctuary of the forest, we celebrate the destruction of his rearguard. Laughing and singing, we return to the keep victorious.

Our revelry is broken by a waiting dispatch from a distant sister in a land of gold and honey, a fellow amazon herself besieged. We read in dismay that her walls have been breached and most of her white company slain in a delaying tactic to secure her retreat to the great donjon tower. She endures six hard days of siege before a relief force can be raised to counterattack and reclaim her fragile walls. The breaches have been bricked over, but her walls remain weakened. How we wish we could spare our veteran column to aid our sister in arms, her allies and family now also under siege. We are reduced to sending messages of solidarity, smuggling through a handful of surplus supplies, exchanging strategies and tactics hard won in the prosecution of this devastating war.

Alone or in twos, our veterans drift away to prepare themselves for the next day's ride with only the crows on the battlements continuing to laugh.

© 2007 Edward P. Morgan III

Numbers

----- Original Message -----

First week of radiation down. Karen has no real tiredness yet (other than the after-effects of chemo, which are slowly improving), though that probably won't start for another week or so. No real redness in the irradiated area either, but that again is about a week away from what we've heard.

Karen's blood counts were lower this week, with both white and red below the low end of average. They gave her a red cell booster this week and an appointment for another check next week. So that remains a weekly check at least for the time being.

Oh, and for those who haven't seen her, she has hair again. Fuzzy, fine and short, but hair. And, yes Mom Monroe, it is coming in red. So far, it's finer than it was, but growing at a decent rate and thickening. By next weekend, maybe the one after, it will look as though she has a buzz cut on purpose. By then we might know how much it wants to curl.

I'll leave you with this thought provided by the radio-oncologist. As he put it, doctors treat cancer with radiation and chemotherapy for the benefit of 6 out of 10 patients. The numbers break down like this. If someone with Karen's rough particulars has no chemo or radiation after surgery, there is a 70% recurrence rate. With chemo and rads, that drops to about 10%. That means 3 out of 10 people don't need any chemo or rads and 1 in 10 won't respond to them. So the doctors are treating for the 6 out of 10 who both need them and will respond. As he put it, the trick will be to one day identify those 6 out of 10 and only treat them. Why put someone through the discomfort and potential side effects who doesn't need it or won't respond to it.

Just an interesting perspective.

----- End Original Message -----

Tuesday Morning Wake-up Call

----- Original Message -----

Ok, I said I wouldn't send something every day. I lied, at least today. But this one isn't about us, not completely.

I think Karen or I have mentioned her friend Sherry in California who also is going through treatment for breast cancer. They met each other on the Breast Cancer dot org chat room the first day each of them signed on. At the time, there was no one else signed on, so they clung to each other for a bit trying to sort out what they each were going through. Sherry has had a much tougher road than Karen. She started this alone, divorced, no family close by. She carries a gene that makes her prone to breast cancer. She had a mastectomy, which took a long time to heal. She started chemo six weeks ago. From the first treatment, she had a rough time with it.

When this first started and I was sending out updates and creative pieces, she and I started exchanging e-mails. For quite a while, she was one of two people I heard from nearly every day, the other being my aunt outside Boston. For me, the two of them were my lifelines, my anchors. Sherry was there for Karen, checking on her, celebrating with her as she made it through each stage.

We hadn't heard from Sherry in several days, not unusual with chemo hitting her quite hard. She was scheduled for her next chemo tomorrow, so I had marked in my calendar to write her and let her know we were thinking about her. When I got to my computer this morning, I found Karen had forwarded a message from Sherry.

As it turns out, Sherry has been in the hospital for the past 6 days. Her blood counts crashed and she got an infection. Her first night in ICU the doctors didn't think she would survive. She is still in isolation at home. She only has the energy to sit at the computer for a short bit each day.

If I have seemed like a militant germaphobe since this started, this is why. I'm not saying Sherry did anything wrong. I don't think she did. I'm not saying we did anything particularly right. We probably just got lucky. I knew all I was doing was shaving a few points off the percentages, hoping that it mattered, hoping people would understand. Not that it would change what I did, being The Enforcer.

But it's not about me.

Last week Sherry had news that her daughter needed a biopsy. Her daughter's husband is re-deploying to Iraq in the coming weeks, his second tour I think, perhaps his third. Even in the middle of chemo, Sherry was strongly considering going to Oregon to be with her daughter for a while. That is the type of person she is. In her note, Sherry told Karen that her daughter was since diagnosed with stage-3 breast cancer, stage 4 if there is any metastasis. She has a very large tumor. Sherry's daughter is 28.

Sherry's daughter and her husband are coming down from Oregon for a few days before she starts her own chemo to shrink the tumor before surgery. Sherry's daughter had always wanted to go skydiving. Even in her current condition, Sherry arranged for that to happen while they were down.

We haven't known Sherry very long, but from what we've learned she is a wonderful, giving person with a huge, compassionate heart. From what she's shared with us, she had a rough start to this life. If ever there was a person who did not deserve this, she is one. Not that anyone does. I wish we could do something for her.

This morning my heart cracked open and is slowly leaking onto the floor.

----- End Original Message -----

Illustrated Woman

----- Original Message -----

First radiation fraction down. Karen is 1/33rd complete. The doctor took some x-rays for a final alignment of the machine before the treatment. Afterwards, Karen asked what areas the beam would affect, so he took his purple marker and drew them out for her, on her (with permission). Very good way to show rather than merely tell. Quick appointment even with the extra photography from what she's told me.

From there it was one door down and five floors up to bloodwork. Her red cell count had recovered to normal range, so no shot today. Yeah! She still has another appointment for bloodwork in a week, but if that comes back in acceptable ranges, they will extend the interval to 2 weeks.

And to the unasked question, I won't be sending out status every day, just when I feel there is news to report or significant milestones. From here forward, she should be at work each day, except around her appointment at 8:30.

For me, this part is strange as it is the first set of appointments I am not with her for. While normal life does not quite resume, it draws a little closer.

----- End Original Message -----

Interstice

The stone-lined pool on the back bailey has transformed from ice to liquid stillness. The sun glances across the mirror of its surface through a narrow wedge between retreating clouds and the horizon, past and future parting, an opening for reflection.

Six months ago, Cassandra stumbled into our camp stammering a prophecy of coming days of darkness, a prelude to the grendel's challenge, a prologue to chapters now read.

The siege has finally lifted. The final round has found its mark. During the night the grendel's army abandoned their camp, some deserting, others dispersing to their caves. Scars mar the hills and fields where fighting raged and army's slept, black reminders that will green and fade with time.

On battlement, the trebuchet lay in pieces, disassembled so the mage-general and his mercenary band can load it onto wagons in preparation for the next battle, someone else's battle. Stacked as unshaved timbers, it looks less martial, less deadly, perhaps a watchtower, a wellhead, the skeleton of a hall. One day.

Though the arsenal stands empty, the fighting has not ended. Hemogoblins still conduct commando raids at twilight. Cackling imps still pilfer her salt, occasionally stealing a memory. Minor elementals still torment her with flame without warning. Sentries remain posted. Pickets patrol beyond the wall. Where we thought to grant leave in the brief respite between phases, our timetable advanced with the enemy's retreat. Even as we clean up the detritus of siege, cloven shields, shattered swords, rent links of chain, we service our equipment for seven weeks in the field.

Wandering through the now open gates it is difficult not to feel a sense of loss. There has been purpose to the months of fighting, our time scripted, spontaneity reserved for sanity and riposte. The narrow spaces between buildings echo with ghosts of that activity, pale specters of the loneliness and fatigue. Shades whose translucent faces mouth a haunting question: is where we were still where we want to be? The answer requires time and contemplation, luxuries that remain in short supply.

With our eyes focused elsewhere, winter turned to spring, spring to summer. And midway to autumn before this campaign ends.

© 2007 Edward P. Morgan III

Simulation

----- Original Message -----

Busy morning, bloodwork with red cell booster, then the "simulation" for radiation, a CT scan to calibrate Karen's shape to determine exact dosages, beams and angles for the machine. Didn't take long, about 25 minutes. And three tattoos, ok, really just three blue dots around her torso to help align the beam.

The radiation center at St. Anthony's issued her a parking permit and bar code pass to scan when she arrives to alert the technicians in back. Interesting way to cut the waiting time for a daily medical appointment.

Karen starts radiation on Monday, June 18, two weeks after her last chemo treatment. So much for any break between chemo and radiation. She will receive 33 "fractions" or treatments, one each day excluding weekends and holidays. By my calculation that means radiation ends on or about Thursday, August 2. The doctor will do a check the final week to see where things stand.

For those of you keeping track at home, Karen's first radiation treatment is six months to the day after the first test that set these events in motion.

----- End Original Message -----

Re: Phase 3, i.e. Reality Check

----- Original Message -----

Since there have been a couple questions, I thought I should clarify something from my last message.

We didn't have a problem with any of what the radiation oncologist said today. Generally, we like him. He was straightforward as most of Karen's doctors have been. The quotes may seem harsh out of context, but the reality is the doctor was doing his job in advising Karen and assessing her mental status.

In my mind, his statements were similar to the surgeon breaking the news that Karen had cancer without preamble. Or the medical oncologist advising us without hedging there was a 50% chance of recurrence over 5 years without chemo or radiation, then informing us that if we wanted to have children we had one week to decide so we could extract and freeze eggs for 5 years down the road. Guess we burned that bridge as we crossed it.

I included the quotes because for both of us they were a cold, hard reality check, one of many as this has gone on, the type that keep us up from 3 to 5 some mornings. More sobering than offensive.

As a final aside, I would guess the "A" word may have gotten a few people's attention. The undisputed fact is that chemotherapy and radiation do terrible things to a fetus. Regardless of where individual beliefs fall on the issue (and I recognize there may be many), I think the doctor was doing his best in making the consequences of our creating that condition abundantly clear. I intend no offense by saying that and intend to start no debate, not that there has been mention of either. Just a final CYA (or is that CMA?).

My apologies if my words or strange, irreverent humor have created either confusion or offense (insert standard media disclaimer here).

----- End Original Message -----

Phase 3

----- Original Message -----

Bit of a rough night last night and the night before with the worst effects of chemo from the second set of drugs (Johnny, tell her about her parting gifts). At least the worst is finally over and chemo is mostly behind us, except for weekly bloodwork and shots as for the next 2-10 weeks, depending. After Monday morning's bloodwork, she should be back at work for the duration. From that point forward, she will schedule any necessary bloodwork and shots at St. Anthony's around the time of her radiation treatments.

Met with the radiation oncologist this morning. He, too, is young, just starting out. He seems nice enough, willing to share information and encouraging questions. Karen is going to have the treatments at St. Anthony's downtown so she can go to them from work.

They will set up an appointment next week, called a simulation, where they calibrate her on the machine with a CT scan and tattoo her for alignment. That will take about 45 minutes. It will take them a few days for the nuclear physicists to run the numbers.

Karen's radiation starts on June 18 (so much for any vacation between phases). Treatments are every day, no weekends or holidays, 10-15 minutes each, lasting 6 1/2 weeks. The main side effects for this are sunburn (to the point of skin breakdown), sensitivity and fatigue. The fatigue could start 2-3 weeks into treatment and last 2-4 weeks after the treatment end. It could be nearly unnoticed or knock her down. At least that should mean it has passed by the time we want to go to Dragon*Con over Labor Day.

On the up side, this doctor is not convinced that Karen has lymphedema. He is recommending a test about a month after radiation, basically going without the pressure sleeve to see what happens. If there is no swelling, perhaps it isn't there. This was an experiment we were intending on conduct anyway, but it is nice to have a doctor's "permission."

And as your Bonus Feature for this message, I'll share with you today's quotes from the doctor that definitely got our attention.

1. "So, you're ok with being sterile."

2. "Should you get pregnant, we would strongly recommend an abortion."

3. "When we're done, 5-7% of your left lung will be non-functional."

I don't think those need any further director's commentary.

Phase three and we hit the ground running. One day I hope to catch my breath.

----- End Original Message -----

Final Tuesday

----- Original Message -----

The last Tuesday we have to truck across the country for a post chemo shot. Yeah! Another small milestone. Now we need to have the last Wednesday, Thursday, Friday of Karen feeling the effects of a chemo treatment and we'll have made real progress. Soon, very soon.

Oh, and a hair update. Yes, it is growing back. Right now it is maybe an eighth of an inch, nearly colorless and baby-fine. But there is just the barest hint of red, so she probably won't come back as a blonde or brunette, for which she is happy. It won't grow much if at all this week, but we should know more on texture in about a month.

----- End Original Message -----

Round Is Up and on the Way

----- Original Message -----

A little tank jargon in the title. Means the ammunition is loaded and fired, but has not yet hit the target.

Last chemo treatment this morning. Everything went well. While we are celebrating a little, we are saving most of it for once Karen no longer feels the impacts, likely this Friday. The chemo treatment isn't the hard part, it's suffering through the days after. We'll cheer and dance more when that phase is past.

Karen still has a shot tomorrow, then weekly blood tests each Monday, and perhaps a shot to keep her blood counts up, for the next 2-10 weeks depending on how her bone marrow recovers. So her appointment schedule doesn't slow down much yet.

Karen has an appointment with the radio-oncologist this coming Friday morning. From what we heard the treatment should start in 4-6 weeks. That treatment will last 5-8 weeks, every day except weekends. We are scheduling it with the radio-oncologist recommended by her medical oncologist. That will be down at St. Anthony's so she can drive over each day from work. Fatigue is the largest side effect we've been warned about, the severity of which depends on the individual. We'll know more after Friday.

We are trying to decide whether we can sneak away somewhere for a few days between chemo and radiation, since we might not get another chance until Labor Day or later. We are considering a last minute cruise out of Tampa, but have yet to decide. We are also considering some sort of get together/celebration once radiation is finished, likely sometime in September. That we'll have to play by ear depending on how she feels and how quickly she recovers. Perhaps the end of chemo might call for an interim celebratory lunch/dinner gathering sometime in a couple weeks, perhaps at Horse and Jockey or Moon Under Water (Mmm, Boddingtons, mm, Blue Moon Belgian Ale). We'll keep you posted.

That's pretty much this week's update. No more all day Mondays. Yeah!

----- End Original Message -----

Ghost

I am the ghost that roams the battlements, waiting for the final preparations to begin, waiting for this siege to end.

The battle is not over once the last shot is fired. It takes time for the round to become effective, time for her to recover from its effects. The siege is finished when all our gates to stand unbarred, the main as well as the posterns. Only then will the first phase of our celebrations begin.

I pace the walls in anticipation, wondering how to chronicle this phase of her journey without relating some of my own. Like a child playing hide and seek, I know more of me has been visible than I would care to believe. Though I close my eyes as I write this, it helps only in my mind.

In the yellow light of twilight, I review my equipment one final time. For months, a satchel with provisions has lingered near the postern, easily snatched for fighting. Experience has winnowed its contents to the essentials, a handful of rations, a flask of water, a few squares of chocolate, a tiny apothecary, cotton to shield my ears from the noise of battle, a pad and pencil to note reconnaissance and orders, a book to relieve the inevitable waiting boredom. Tucked through one strap hangs my only armor, a padded jersey emblazoned with the name of a foreign land to ward against the cold. The mage-general's magic strips the air of warmth as did the captain-general's before him. At times its hood lends me anonymity to watch and listen unobserved, a brief refuge from the flurry of activity on the battlements to note my observations. A steaming flagon remains my only weapon, a caffeinated potion that keeps my eyes wide and my senses sharp, a witches’ brew of coffee and cocoa laced with sugar, like the experience, both scalding and bittersweet.

It is hard to know which has been more difficult, the weeks of ceaseless fighting or a break just long enough to restore a few days of normalcy before the battle resumes, shattering the illusion into a cracked and jagged reflection of reality. These furloughs, while welcome, serve as both history and foreshadowing, reminders of what we have lost and what we hope to regain.

I am the ghost that roams the battlements, clinging to living in hopes of being made whole or dispelled and finally allowed to rest.

© 2007 Edward P. Morgan III