Progress, maybe; logistics

D-H Keene is right on the ball. Thursday afternoon we met with the oncologist who took care of me last time around (strangely, he looks nine years older), and he will use the D-H Lebanon protocols, so we won't have to drive up to Lebanon for treatment. Assuming Plan A, this will involve three courses of chemo, one every two weeks, followed by lesser doses of chemo twice a week plus radiation every day for several weeks. Jerry and I went into overload at that point and can't remember just how long that will last. Then they'll do another test and decide if surgery will be an option.
Friday I met with the oncology nurse, also familiar from the last time, and she did What to Expect From Chemo, saying at intervals, "But you'll remember that side effect." Oh, yes.
Only new thing is that this time I'll have a port http://www.cancerbackup.org.uk/Treatments/Chemotherapy/Linesports/Implantableport
to be put in on the 18th. They're planning the first chemo on the 19th.
All of this treatment plan depends on the results of the as-yet-unscheduled PET scan, which despite suggestions from several friends, does not involve taking the cats up to Lebanon with us.

During the night my mind started riffing on the word “port”. There’s posh (port out, starboard home), Harry Potter’s port-key, prêt-a-porter, a nice glass of port or porter, and then suddenly bubbling up to the surface of my mind from French 201, this bit of Victor Hugo:
C’est le moment crépusculaire. J’admire, assis sous un portail,
Ce reste du jour, dont s’éclaire la derniere heure du travail.
(More or less: It is the twilight moment. I admire, sitting in a portal, this end of day, lighting up the last hour of work.) It came back to me in my own younger voice, declaiming it with rolled r’s and intense faked emotion. So why does something like that hide in my unconscious for forty-five years, when I blocked the other day on my social security number?
In the last few days especially I have appreciated the human contacts, seeing friends, getting phone calls and emails. I suddenly realize how much I've been taking so many wonderful people for granted.