As the sun rises on Day 7 in the hospice, there is a slightly cooler breeze moving the trees and grasses outside our room - enough to chock the door to the veranda open and let the air and 'nature noises' in for a while.

Sue had her first of 4 consecutive days of palliative radiation therapy yesterday. The radiation itself is painless, though the process of getting there and back, and the need to hold an unnatural immobile 'stretched' position for about 15 minutes, brought its own discomfort. The bonus was the 'outing' away from our room. It is amazing how one can appreciate and savor in one context, the very things that go unnoticed and unappreciated in another - a changing 'view', a spatter of raindrops, a variation of terrain, wafting smells, familiar locations and different faces.

The radiation session went as planned and was without any surprises, though I did remember to be impressed by the technology and the skills of those operating it, and thankful again for the access we have to it. I took a couple of photos of the radiation room and the control room (below). Mitchell made the observation that it looked like the Stargate portal (if you are not a nerdy type, that is a 'gate' that allows instantaneous travel across the cosmos - obviously science fiction, at least for the time being!). I have included an image of the Stargate portal below. I guess I see the general similarity, but I am glad that Sue was just zapped with high-powered xrays and returned to me and not removed bodily to join a meeting between Tok'ra and Goa'uld Sytem Lords on planet Revanna!

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Things are proceeding okay and the pain and 'dopeyness' levels are adjusting slowly to an acceptable balance. We are working on getting all bodily systems functioning acceptably, and mobility issues improved. When we get all that sorted, we will get back home. At this stage, the agreed target is Monday/Tuesday next week.

There is not a lot else to report other than that a new environment brings a new set of people who are apparently unable to read/say Susanne (soo-zaan). We are again peppered with all the variants reported in earlier blogs with the addition of something that sounded like 'Shizayne' - but that might have been an issue of 'accent'. The best one yet is the (unnamed) person who managed to call us Sandra and David Bates! It would be difficult to get it more wrong than that......

Lucky that we are secure in who we are and amused, rather than offended, by such errors.