Nine-and-a-half weeks

​Driving home on July 1, 2020, at 9:30 p.m. after an evening medical appointment (which had been delayed a full day from my usual morning slot due to unforeseen equipment problems), the sun had set recently, replaced in the darkening sky by a waxing gibbous moon. The temperature had cooled about a dozen degrees from the daytime high in the low 90s.

​Traffic light, the two-mile drive along the surface streets from the clinic to I-75 was gratifying. The car windows down; sunroof open; Real Jazz on SiriusXM — “On Green Dolphin Street” to be followed by “A Love Supreme” — flowed from the speakers; amateur fireworks exploded silently in the distant sky before raining down glittery embers that vanished quickly from sight.

It was, for me, an extraordinary moment of pleasure of a different kind and the start of an entirely new journey.

I had just completed day eight of week two of proton beam radiation for prostate cancer.

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