Glossary of Symbols

Originally, I put this together as a guide for my great uncle, who I was sending printouts of the messages in batches by snail-mail. I figure most people will get these, but if not, here is some of what I meant.

• The Amazons are the other patients and survivors, especially a local group called the BC Warriors. Amazons were a greatly feared tribe of women warriors in Greek mythology, reputed to have cut off their right breast so it wouldn’t interfere with their bowstrings. Like the legend, these are not women to be trifled with.
• The ambushes are the radiation treatments.
• The armor is Karen’s sleeve for the lymphedema, usually.
• The artillerist the medical oncologist.
• The artillerist's assistants are the oncology nurses.
• The balloon came from a friend of ours who took a balloon ride and sent us the pictures one morning, which acted as an inspiration.
• The captain-general the surgeon.
• The challenge and individual combat are the surgeries.
• The clear is Cytoxan, which is clear and not as bad as chemotherapy drugs go.
• The couriers carry email, sometimes cards, flowers and edible arrangements.
• The crystal is Taxotere.
• The data mines are all the various scans and tests.
• The dwarves are the various technicians running scans and tests.
• The dwarven lord is our insurance company.
• The elementals are hot flashes.
• The girls are the granulocytes, a kind of white blood cell in the bloodwork. They are the a measure of how many new white blood cells are forming.
• The glass balls fired by the trebuchet are the IV bags contain the Taxotere. They were inspired by seeing the nurses use a different plastic to hold the Taxotere as it would react with the normal IV bag plastic. That plastic looked much more shiny and clear to me.
• The glyphs are the 3 bluish-purple tattoos the radio-oncologist put on Karen's side and chest to properly align the beam. They are just small dots but still visible.
• Greek fire, or the Red Devil as the nurses called it, is Adriamycin. The nurses really did use elbow length gloves when they prepared it. Scary.
• The gremlins (with their bludgeons) are the soreness after the Taxotere and the radiation treatments.
• The grendel is the cancer. Sometimes, I talk about the grendel as a dragon, other times as a troll or ogre.
• The grendel's eggs are recurrences or metastases, which is the point of the chemo and radiation.
• The griffin really is the heraldic symbol of the Morgan family in Wales. A banner emblazoned with a griffin that Karen made for me back in college hangs behind me in my office.
• The hemogoblins are somewhat strange as I have them as allies of the grendel but in truth a side effect of chemotherapy. (the word hemogoblin was suggested by a friend of ours, I think misreading something I wrote).
• The horses, well, Karen likes horses so they had to be in there.
• The imps that replace her salt with copper are a side effect of chemo that changes the way foods taste.
• Isolation is both the physical isolation of not seeing people because of low white counts and sometimes the mental isolation of people not communicating. The latter can be the hardest to deal with.
• The keep alternates between the house and Karen herself, often within the same message.
• Lycanthropy is the change that this experience causes within you, sometimes the way you feel as it changes the way you see the world. As I said, some people are funny in the way they deal with this and shun you like a monster or a werewolf.
• The mage-general the medical oncologist.
• The mercenaries are any of a number of doctors, nurses and technicians (all very compassionate, but also paid for their services).
• The necromancers are the side effects of chemotherapy that cause memory loss and mood changes.
• The old veterans are the lymphocytes, another kind of white blood cell in the bloodwork.
• The pigeons are the email messages.
• The pots fired by the trebuchet are the IV bags containing the chemo drugs.
• The priest the medical oncologist.
• The ray in its many forms, enfeebling, magical or coruscating, is the radiation.
• The red company is Karen’s red blood cell count.
• The sally port is the port the surgeon put in to inject chemo drugs and extract blood.
• The siege is chemo, also at times the isolation at the house.
• The sorcerer-engineer is the radiation oncologist.
• The tower keep or the donjon is the hospital.
• The trebuchet is chemotherapy, maybe more precisely, the needle.
• The undead army that could take over the white company is leukemia.
• The water gate is the backyard (with the birdbath) that borders on the ditch.
• The white company is Karen’s white blood cell count.

Karen looking toward the future

October 2010