Okay, it's been a few weeks since a blog update. I made three trips to Loma Linda in May, but now I'm here for the duration of my treatment (unless I am fortunate enough to be able to sneak away for a job interview). My Proton Beam radiation starts this week and is scheduled to end the first week in July.
I find Loma Linda to be an amazing oasis. Having lived in Montana for 18 years and having only made a couple very brief trips to Southern California, Loma Linda is practically an exotic foreign country to me. (I realize this works in both directions - right now someone from Rancho Cucamonga just returned from a vacation to Galcier Park and is blogging about how Montana is a beautiful oasis...practically another country.)
It's not just the climate, terrain and flora and fauna differences that make Loma Linda unique - lots of So Cal looks like this. It's also the enormous presence of the Medical Center and the Seventh Day Adventist influence that make Loma Linda unlike anywhere else - that make it the perfect place for a "radiation vacation."
I love walking around the town. It's not very big...maybe 20,000 people and 8-12 square miles. Loma Linda is about an hour east of Los Angeles...buffered from San Bernadino by I-10 and the railroad tracks and protected to the south by a ridgeline. With my blood still "Montana thick" I prefer to take my long walks in the morning or at dusk. It's a total feast for the senses. Sure, there's the ubiquitous Palm trees and the well-represented orange trees - and roses seem to grow like weeds without any thought or planning. But there's soooo much more. Most of the trees and flowers are new to me so I can't list them here. I did make a point of asking a lady I met one evening to tell me the name of the large trees with the purple blossoms. They're Jacaranda trees (picture above) and they are pretty much in bloom here in May. They're beautiful and can be seen for miles from a good vantage point. I cannot tell you just how good it smells walking around the neighborhoods. Just watch out for the skunks in the evening. I've crossed paths with more skunks here in May than I've directly met in my previous 45 years.
I'm renting half of a little cottage on the west end of town. I can walk to just about everything I need. The Medical Center is a 12-minute walk from my cottage and the amazing Drayson Center athletic complex is a 15 minute walk away. My cottage is sweet...really tiny, but everything I need. It's furnished and has DirecTV, high-speed internet, a full kitchen and it is air conditioned. It's quiet for the most part...the dog next door gets fired up every now and then...and the helicopters come and go at all hours as LLMC is the Level 1 trauma center for all San Bernadino County. I actually find the helicopters comforting as I imagine a good outcome when they arrive at their destination.
No one ever comes to Loma Linda for a steak and a beer. This town probably has the highest per capita percentage of vegetarians in the country. There's two grocery stores and a small market. The largest grocery store (a chain) does have red meat, wine and beer but the other two do not. The cafeterias at the hospital are 100% vegetarian. This is due to the Seventh Day Adventist presence in town. It's an awful stereotype to say that Seventh Day Adventist are similar to Mormons (probably about as fair as saying Koreans are "like" Chinese) but I don't have the space to get into deep detail. Adventist are conservative, follow a healthy diet (even more so than LDS), and like Mormons even have a 19th-century prophet (Ellen White is to Adventists as Joseph Smith is to Mormons). The motto of the Adventist is "to make man whole", and that is really seen in the Loma Linda Medical Center. I cannot think of a better place to be treated and to stay during treatment. If you want a more detailed description of the Seventh Day Adventist religion, you can always Google it. Radiation patients also get a free pass to the Drayson center (below)...it's an amazing fitness facility, and I'll go there most every day, even if it's only just to swim.
My treatment starts in a couple days. I'm not nervous, anxious maybe, but not nervous. I'm hoping that I'll sail through with no side effects, though some fatigue is almost certain. I feel great...I spent some time this weekend with people who had not seen me in several months. A couple thought that my cancer was working on me...I laughed and told them that I just finally got serious about eating healthy and quickly dropped a lot of weight. Truthfully I feel better than I have in years...now if I can just find a job. I'll update that quest soon, but tomorrow I think I'm going to the Joshua Tree...and the next day to the Getty Museum in LA. The job can wait, the radiation vacation will continue. For now.
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