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I'm finishing up the first week of radiation. The treatment itself is a matter of seconds once they get me lined up. And I an feel absolutely nothing - no heat, tinging, nada. Symptoms, if there are any, won't kick in for another week or two.
I came down by myself for this holiday-shortened week. This weekend, I return to Dallas and move back here to Houston with Christine for the remaining five weeks.
It sat on the shelf for a while, but I am now again reading Birth of the Clinic by Michel Foucault. In his words, it is "an archaeology of medical perception". The themes are reminiscent of Kuhn's Nature of Scientific Revolutions. Anyway, I got a kick out of the requirements for students to be trained in medicine at around the time of the French Revolution. Quoting from a guidebook of the time, students were chosen who demonstrated "good conduct, pure morals, love of the Republic, and a hatred of tyrants, sufficient education, and above all, a knowledge of some of the sciences that might serve as a preliminary to the art of curing."
A lot has changed since then. But I have noticed that while these oncologists down here have many idiosyncrasies and a whole range of strengths and weaknesses, it is true that as far as I can tell, none has a love of tyrants.