She was feeling at her worst after weeks of radiation, with multiple symptoms affecting every aspect of her life. She told me that she really didn’t want to ring the bell that day. I asked her about her experience of radiation therapy as she now needs to use dilators to prevent stenosis of the vagina. I recently met with a young woman who had been treated for anal cancer. So what did ringing the bell mean to them? Men who have had surgery as primary treatment for prostate cancer deal with incontinence and erectile dysfunction for weeks, months, and even years with little or no resolution. Almost all who have been treated with androgen deprivation therapy ask about when they can expect to no longer have hot flashes. Some have the symptoms of radiation damage to bladder and/or bowel and want to know when the these will go away. In my appointments with men who have completed radiation therapy for prostate cancer, I discuss the long- and late-term effects of their treatment. But as the years have gone by since publishing the book and as a result of many conversations with patients who have rung the bell, I have come to question that practice because of what it means to those patients and those who care for them. I tried to be gentle in my caution about expectations for the immediate days and weeks that follow. In the introduction to the book I explore the concept of cancer survivorship and what life after cancer might look like for the person who rings the bell at the end of treatment. I’ve even used the event as the title of one of my books, After You Ring the Bell: 10 Challenges for the Cancer Survivor. Often patients have their loved ones with them to witness this sentinel event-the ringing of the bell. Or it’s a ship’s bell, attached to a wall outside the radiation department or the chemotherapy unit. Usually it’s a large bell, like one that used to be rung in schools signaling the end of recess. Keep going right, and eventually you'll see a couch where you can, again, sit down and stay there for the Resignation ending.It’s become a common practice in oncology institutions across North America: A patient completes their prescribed course of treatment and they ring a bell. Towards the end of Chapter 12, when you're first freeing people from the alien pods, you eventually fall through the floor into the sea, then swim up to find yourself in an area similar to one from earlier in the game. There's actually a 2nd way to 'achieve' this ending. You could be dead, but the achievement for this ending suggests you're simply resigned, and by settling for this vague simulacrum of your family, you've failed. You sit down with your family, the screen fades to black, then fades back in to show you alone on the couch, slumped and looking up at the sky. That couch looks so inviting and cozy, doesn't it? Well, if you sit down on the couch, then you get the first possible 'bad' ending of the game. They're not at home, however, and are surrounded by that abstract alien matter that you interact with through much of the game. Eventually, you come across your partner and child sitting on a couch. After lifting the rubble off the starship trooper and absorbing his power, you walk to the right, and then you use a fuse to melt down a wall and walk towards the background. The first ending to Somerville occurs quite late in the game - Chapter 13 - during the flashback sequence. Here's how to achieve each one of Somerville's five different endings, including that elusive good one. While four of the five are fairly easy to attain, only one of them can be described as a 'Good' ending, which is actually quite hard to get. Unlike its spiritual predecessors, however, Somerville has several endings. True to those games, Somerville is a game without words or writing, instead telling its story through powerful images and - as the case may be - colored lights. The game is made by Jumpship, a studio founded by Dino Patti, who previously co-founded Playdead, the studio behind Limbo and Inside. Storywise, the game borrows from some great sci-fi like War of the Worlds and Arrival. Somerville is a cinematic platformer made by Jumpship, telling an atmospheric story about a man who sets out to reunite with his family following an alien invasion of planet Earth.
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