The joke goes that Ole, the quintessential doofus Norwegian, was working atop a 50-story skyscraper when he lost his footing and plummeted toward the ground. As he passed the 25th floor, several witnesses heard Ole exclaim, “Well, so far so good!”

I related this tale to my radiation oncologist after having had one chemotherapy session and three daily doses of radiation. I am slated to receive a total of 35 radiation sessions. Some six doses of chemotherapy are also scheduled to be doled out at the rate of one per week.

I shared that joke with the good doctor because I felt absolutely fine at the moment. Perhaps it was just the steroids that had been pumped into me during the chemo, but when the doc asked how I felt I replied, “I could wrestle a bear!”

A moment later I hedged, adding, “If the bear was very small and stuffed. And named Teddy.”

The physician regarded me with a bemused smile. I don’t know what he was thinking at the moment, but it might have been something along the lines of, “So you feel pretty chipper, do you? Hold my beer.”

What I didn’t realize at that moment, and what I would soon learn the hard way, was that the side effects of my particular chemo usually don’t kick in until days three to five.

I awoke on day four feeling a bit off. I ate my usual breakfast and settled down for a snooze in my recliner. I have been told by numerous medical professionals that it’s important for me to get lots of rest. This goes against the grain of my lifelong habit of doing something productive or constructive every day. I was essentially being told that I needed to learn how to be lazy.

By noon on day four I was feeling somewhat yucky. I regarded this as no big deal. There are plenty of times in a guy’s life when he might feel a little bit off.

The yucky sensation grew as my wife drove me to that day’s radiation appointment. When we arrived at the medical center, the smell of their cafeteria’s pizza nearly made me gag.

In case you are wondering, yes, I was issued prescriptions for two different antinausea pills. I hadn’t taken any yet because I was convinced that I would be able to simply muscle through it the way I always had in the past.

The radiation sessions take only 15 minutes. Much of it involves getting me positioned on the table and doing a quick CT scan to make sure that everything is situated just so. The emitter — a disc that’s roughly 18 inches across and a foot thick – then makes two semicircular passes over me, making tiny buzzes and hums as it travels. I watch the funhouse reflection of my plastic mesh mask in the gold-colored square at the bottom of the emitter as it moves robotically past my face.

Amy and Ashley are two of the radiation technicians who set me up for what amounts to an extreme tanning bed experience. Prior to one of my sessions, I asked Amy and Ashley what sort of equipment was behind the wall. I wanted to have a gander at the machinery that produces the radiation.

“It’s just a linear accelerator,” they replied offhandedly, as though they were talking about an old Holstein cow.

I asked if I could take a peek behind the curtain. They said yes and swung open a very thick and very heavy door.

Peering into the room, my gaze met a mind bogging array of super-duper high-tech electronics. Nothing about it was the least bit familiar. I felt as though I were staring at the inner workings of the starship Enterprise’s warp drive.

“Holy cats!” I thought to myself. “What does all of that stuff do?”

But there was no time for a Q&A session; my turn on the table was at hand. Once again I lay upon the table and watched the emitter pass over me, blasting the cancer in my neck with ionizing radiation. Killing the bad cells and also, probably, some good ones.

Unlike Ole in the joke, I am not plummeting cluelessly toward an unhappy ending. I’m being guided on this journey by numerous highly skilled medical professionals, some of whom I may never meet.

I have also been greatly heartened by the many cards and prayers that I’ve received wishing me a speedy recovery. They mean a lot to me. I can never thank everyone enough.

And now, onto the next chemotherapy.

— Jerry’s book, Dear County Agent Guy, is available at Workman.com and in bookstores nationwide.