ozymandias and chemo -

Friday, June 24, 2011

Good morning Chemo-13. (For those of you not caught up, that’s the name of our gang) and by reading this you are member of the gang.

I didn’t get to write yesterday because I was held captive at Perkins, by what is apparently the only place in town for people over 60 to eat breakfast. The place was so packed I thought I missed a state or federal holiday somehow. It was weird.

Once I made it through the line out the door (yeah, I stayed) and got to my seat I started reflecting on all this cancer stuff. And though I am not getting or being negative, this kind of situation makes you consider your mortality and the life you’ve led. Then I started thinking about Percy Shelly’s poem Ozymandias.

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:

`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away".

Sitting in Perkins surrounded by Septuagenarians and me fighting for life against cancer and staring into my bottomless cup of black coffee, I became aware at visceral level why it is important to help others and why it is important to be grateful. As ephemeral as life is, possessions seem to me to, are equally fleeting and it is our contribution not our things that outlast us.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Little lighter fare.

Now that you’re totally depressed let’s lighten it up a little. My nephew sent us some Chemo –13 logos. I’m thinking of getting some tee-shirts or something made. Which one do you like let me know at Lettice123@yahoo.com

 

I never did tell you how I am feeling after the transfusions. I feel okay. Still have some stamina issues, but I guess I’ll have them ‘till we beat this thing.  

Love to all