Cancer could be so much worse

Okay; the title strays fairly widely into clickbait territory. The truth is that most forms of  radiation therapy - and specifically the form that I am getting - do  not  mean radio active  therapy . Sorry Morgan - no radioactive pee. Not now, not ever. While there are some cancers that are treated with internal radiation (otherwise known as brachytherapy) , I am undergoing external beam radiation therapy . A large machine called a linac (for  lin ear ac celerator) directs a beam of particles - protons in my case - into my pelvis to kill off any remaining cancer cells that might have been too small to see or appear on CT scan. Radioactivity would persist, only decreasing as it decays over time (often years or decades); the sort of radiation that I am getting stops the moment they turn off the machine. It's more like turning off a light switch; if I were being exposed to radioactivity it would still be bouncing around the room once my therapy was over. So....

"How are you doing, John?" We ask that question - how are you doing? - without even thinking. Most of the time it's a nicety; we don't really have an emotional investment in the person we are asking so don't really care what the response is. Usually they respond with something mild and banal - fine thanks , or something similar - and if they go into shocking detail we recoil and start looking for the exits. But since I was diagnosed with cancer, a lot more people ask me this question with a lot more intent than they used to. Of course people care about me. People care about other people - that's what helped us evolve and survive as a hunter/gatherer society. And I'm a generally good person that people tend to like. But here's the thing - I actually care about them, too. So now, when they ask how I'm doing, I actually answer them truthfully. For the most part, my response is something along the lines of "really good right now," but som...