Friday: February 3, 2012

I couldn't help but chuckle when I learned this morning's Mass would be said in honor St. Blaise, the patron saint of throat illnesses. As a child, I can remember the priest touching my neck with the two crossed candles that is the blessing of the throat.

St. Blaise, so the story goes, saved a boy with a fish bone stuck in his throat in Armenia during the Fourth Century. My throat has been feeling better, but some St. Blaise mojo couldn't hurt.

Later, when I arrived at the Clinic, Didi sat in the small alcove that served as the waiting room for patients using my Big Machine. We talked and prayed for a bit.

As we sat, a woman, someone with her and several technicians walked over to a bell attached to the wall. Tradition calls for radiation patients to ring it on their last day of treatment and to recite a poem. I guessed she had some kind of throat-related cancer given how badly her neck was swollen. I hoped St. Blaise would intercede on her behalf.

The techs had a few issues lining me up with The Big Machine this morning and, for the first time, had to come back into the room to make further adjustments.

“I'm not sure what's going on,” Renee explained. “It happens sometimes.”

I headed to a poker tournament Friday evening. Beforehand, a group of us stopped at the popular hot dog joint, Happy Dog.

As we sat waiting for our food, a short, muscular man with an intense look on his face walked to our table and stopped. He looked at the four of us and then fixed his gaze on me. He thrust out his hand toward me, which I shook, and then wordlessly walked away.

My friends asked if I knew him. I did not. None of us was quite sure what had just occurred.

For what it's worth, Lynn thinks I’ve developed a “presence.” So does Mary Lou. She said she has told the children that I've been “touched by God.”

When I asked her what she meant, she didn’t answer.

Sleep did not come easily after I made it home from poker. I floated in a dreamlike state where I had convinced myself the cancer was not real and that I would get up in the morning and everything would be fine.

I rarely remember my dreams. But shortly before my diagnosis, for the first time in a long time, I had to awaken myself from a dream gone horribly bad. I had helped kill someone and, after trying to cover it up, was about to be exposed.

Even after rousing myself back to consciousness, the vividness lingered.

I have been exposed. And none of it is a dream.