Vorlon Whispers

Feb 20 Fades to Black

I’m sitting in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. I plan on getting to bed fairly early. The drive up was uneventful and except for a couple of slow spots on the turnpike I made good time. I must say, except for the peripheral neuropathy (numbness) in my feet, I feel very good. The further I get from my last chemo treatment, the better I feel.

Normally I would have another chemo treatment this Wednesday, but not this time. My next appointment with my oncologist is March 1 and that’s just a meeting, there is no chemo scheduled. I don’t know quite what to make of this situation. Perhaps the oncologist feels I’m doing well enough that I can take a “chemo vacation.” Perhaps I’ll send him a fax and see what’s happening.

I feel like I’m beating the odds and getting better. As I said before, I believe that when you have your hands around you enemy’s neck, you do not let go. In war, when you have your enemy in a state of loosing, you throw even more at him to completely defeat him. When you enemy is down, you kick him as hard as you can.

That’s what I want to do to the parasite in my body.

I feel so good that I feel like my mind is coming back to normal. I feel almost like I’ve been asleep since last October and I’m starting to wake up. Of course, I have yet to get the results of my MRI and CT scan of last Friday. I could be getting a head fake.

On the way up I popped one of Tony Robbins’ CD’s into the car stereo. I haven’t listened to it for some time. I’m rather a fan of his. Perhaps that’s not quite the right characterization. I guess I wouldn’t call myself a fan but rather I think he makes some good points.

One of the points he makes is the difference between effort and reward. He makes the case that if you do a poor job, you get no reward. He goes on to say, if you do a good job, you get a poor reward. He extends this to say that if you do an excellent job, you only get a good reward.

Lastly he states that excellence is not the end. Even though you think you’ve given it all, you still have something left. If you give that last bit, he calls this performance “outstanding.” He says the outstanding performance gives you all the rewards and the difference in effort between excellence and outstanding is very small.

I rather liken this to hockey. Most professional hockey players are excellent or they wouldn’t be there. But there was only one Gretzky. He was outstanding.

I rather liken his model to what I’m going through. Sadly I don’t feel like I’ve performed at the outstanding point. I don’t think I ever got to the point where I was out of physical capacity and had to reach down and run on only heart. Yeah, there have been some days I felt rather poorly, but I tended to not push myself like I probably should have.

Well, I expect I’ll get another chance to improve my performance. I hope I don’t disappoint.

Posted by The Vorlon at February 20, 2006 9:08 PM