As readers of this column may know by now, I am a terminal cancer patient, kept alive by twice-a-month chemical infusions, and a regimen of colorful pills whose names I cannot pronounce.

No, that brief description won’t do; it glosses over the details. While I can’t speak for others, let me draw a clearer picture for you of my regimen.

First, they pump in the chemical drip. And for that day and days after, you are tired, perhaps with nighttime eyes awake through dawn. There are waves of nausea to deal with, and the grave, daily demand to eat when you’ve lost your appetite, as the foods you once loved turn into tasteless shadow versions of what they used to be.

Then, just when when you start to feel like yourself again, that damned calendar reminds you: “Psst, buddy, time to drop your butt into that seat again for more, and wait for it to kick in your teeth, again.”

Yet some God-given inner buoyancy has kept me afloat through all of it. Until now. But lately, a melancholy voice in my head has begun to croak: “This is how it’s going to be for the rest of your life, for the rest of your life, for the rest of your life. If you stop, you will die.”

Perhaps it’s a common practice at clinics like the one that’s treating me to send off those chemotherapy patients who have finished their treatment by having them ring a bell in celebration.

“You will never ring that bell,” says the voice.

Yet, sometimes, when the gloomy voice starts up, the clouds part, and I stand in sunshine and remember the many wonderful things in my life.

Here are a few.

Of course there is my supportive family: big sister Carole and little sister Diane, and brothers Matt and Jack, setting my head back on its platform again when the bad stuff gets me down.

Then there is Ann, my wife. Marrying her on Oct. 11, 2015, was the best decision I’ve ever made, though she’s always ready to remind me how long I took to get to it.

At first, the treatment regimen was hard for the scatter-brained person with attention deficit disorder that I am, and I fought it. Ann saw to it that I downed the pills I did not want to take, but those are the pills that have since kept me in the game. She persisted through my bad moods, brooking no nonsense about the pills, or the necessity of making all of the appointments. Bless her.

Then there’s Holley, the German Shepherd puppy we brought into our home last March. As a man who has never had kids, this experience has been an eye-opener. She demands our attention 24/7, waking us up before dawn to play, inserting into her formidable jaws shoes, eyeglasses and anything else that’s helpless

But having the pup there when I arrive home to what would have been an empty house (Ann works until 2 a.m, Monday to Friday) — and except for the destruction Holley leaves in her wake — cheers me.

Finally, there’s the staff at this newspaper, who have allowed me to keep working and write this column through some bad moments.

To everyone I’ve mentioned, I will appropriate Shakespeare’s 29th Sonnet to explain what your presence in my life has meant to me:

“Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth sings hymns at heaven’s gate;

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.”

Love to hear from you.

Robert Whale can be reached at robert.whale@auburn-reporter.com.