Only 5 more!

Such a glorious day today!  As of right now, I only have 5 more radiation treatments to undergo before my treatment is complete.  I can not express how much of a relief this simple fact is to me right now.  Showed up this morning for treatment and the two lovely ladies that work the front desk asked me if anyone had called me.  That is usually not a good sign, but I forged ahead as I don't want to tack on any more treatments because I miss some along the way.  Both machines were down this morning and the waiting room was overflowing with people waiting to receive their morning radiation burn.  Today is my day to meet with the doctor, so I went around the corner to initiate that process so that was at least out of the way and then I could just wait for radiation.  Before I see the radiation oncologist, I am subjected to an barrage of physical tests to assess my condition.  Weight (104 kg), body temperature, standing blood pressure and the final in the series, sitting blood pressure.  After successfully passing all those tests, it was off to see the doctor.  Nothing new came out of the doctor visit.  Just stay the course and it will get worse before it gets better.  When done with the doctor, it was back over to the radiation waiting area where they had at least gotten my normal machine up and working so they were slowly working their way through patients.  I finally was called back at about 10:30 am, a mere 2 hours after my scheduled 8:30 time-slot.  I was happy to wait, however, as I DO NOT want to extend my treatment past next Wednesday.  The treatment took a bit longer than normal as they worked around certain aspects of the machine that were still inoperable.  (It had nothing to do with the actual radiation, the biggest issue is they have a auxiliary x-ray head on the machine that they take the setup x-rays with for positioning and they could not use that, so they had to use the main machine head to do all the positioning and it takes longer that way)  Only thing of note today is that my skin is really showing the effects of the radiation burn, especially the scar line and the back of my shoulder is all torn up from it.

I had an awesome surprise waiting for me at work that I had no idea had been in the works for a while now.  A couple of my friends at work organized an awesome support rally for me that occurred yesterday, on a Tuesday when they knew I would be out for the day.  My sailing buddy brought in his boat and launched it in one of the ponds at work as a backdrop to their festivities and to show his sailing prowess, actually tacked a couple times across the very, very small pond.  The have also inspired the next brew, whenever I can actually do that again, Sailin' Stobb IPA will come to life and perhaps be a mainstay in the garage fridge as I move forward.  They got everybody to wear bald caps and large, fake beards and they drank (root)beer from an array of awesome steins.  Included was an awesome shirt for everybody that is depicted at right.  It was an awesome show of support from a group of people that mean a great deal to me, and I hope that I can express to them my utmost gratitude for what they have done.  It could not have come at a better time, as the days begin to wear on me hopefully this is the final push I need to make it through next week and beyond.  Thank you to everyone involved in this, and thank you to anyone who prayed for/with me and to all those who have kept me in their thoughts as I have continued through this journey.  I don't know that I will every be able to repay all the support that I have received, but I will start with this:  THANK YOU!