Crying for Cabbage

Tonight I actually started crying when Pat ate her dinner. I was so jealous. She sat down to eat some sauteed cabbage, carrots and chicken. Not exactly gourmet, but compared to the Ensure and the anti-gas pill I was consuming...and it smelled so good. I realize now that I haven't had a real meal since I was in the hospital five weeks ago. Sure, I've had my soups and my beef broth with an egg, but my soul wants a plate. A plate with whole foods on it that I can bite into and chew. Ah, to chew, what a thought.

There are two problems. One is the blockage by the big tumor in my colon which means not much can pass through. I won't go into too much detail, but you get the picture. The theory is when the tumor shrinks, the area for what used to be food to pass through would get bigger, thereby making eating easier. There is also the real chance that this part of my colon will actually shrink with the tumor, then I will be in exactly the same predicament as I am now. Time will tell.

Problem number two is the gas. And we've talked about this before. An indelicate subject, but one we all know intimately. The place where the tumor is sometimes blocks the gas from getting to where is needs to go - which is out. So I take an anti-gas pill four times a day. They help a ton, but there is still enough air movement to make Pat turn her head and Bennett to ask if there is thunder in there (a direct quote from last night).  And it does hurt sometimes. Not like it used to, but if I am not super careful about what I eat, when I eat, how much etc., I can get into some real trouble, which really scares me.

And it makes me so sad. Sadder than I thought it would. I guess it's a little like my hair. I didn't think it would bother me, but it really does in a deep and troubling way. I knew the cancer would really bother me, but I just assumed the hair and the food and the fatigue would just be sort of incidental. I knew my life would change, but not so thoroughly. I am not sure what I was thinking. I guess there is no way to know until you get here. I can talk to as many people as I want who've made it to the other side, but I can't know what my journey, my response, will be until I am there.  Sometimes it is as big a surprise to me as it is to you.

Tomorrow Chemo

Yes, tomorrow is chemo. At this point I feel little like maybe it will happen and maybe it won't. Everything has been so unpredictable. I have no reason to believe that it won't happen, it's just that before my second chemo I had to wait an extra week, and before my originally scheduled third chemo I was in the hospital. So let's just hope that this goes off without a hitch - my WBC are okay, the drugs are in stock, and whatever else that I can't think of won't happen.

I had a really great day today. Took Bennett to school, walked the dog, even got into the studio for an hour. I designed the stained glass that will go over the door in the new bedroom. The thing about being in the studio, is I have to be present in order to make work - I mean really present. And that is hard, because I have to think about all the things I try not to think about all the live long day. So I worked for an hour and that is what I could do before I started getting afraid. Maybe Thursday I can do it for longer knowing that I survived today's hour just fine. The fear did not kill me and it never will.  It's just fear. Frickin', wily-assed fear that is my worst enemy- keeping me from my living the way I want to be in my life.

I also got my hair cut today. I had a great experience with Julie's fab hairdresser at Salon O in Easthampton. She made me cry by not letting me pay. Another example of the incredible generosity that comes to me.

I am not sure always how to take it, but I know everyone just wants to do what they can in a situation that is so disempowering. Is that a word?  How about a situation that scares the shit out of everyone? That's probably more accurate.

Today I heard a story from a friend about a guy who has colon cancer and it is also in his liver. He had surgery and had to have 1/5 of his liver removed. Lucky bastard, is all I could think. Of course I don't know the whole story, and of course I am also very lucky, but it's that same thing that makes me jealous of people who seem to be less full of cancer than I am. I have to remind myself that cancer sucks for everyone who gets it. Period. And that kind of thinking helps no one, and doesn't change a single thing. Not my cancer, not his cancer, not the absence cancer in the other people's bodies.

Okay, so let me keep my eye on the most accessible prize - tomorrow's chemo. I want my little pump back, whispering it's hard work to me for 46 hours, reminding me that we are all working hard to save my life one whoosh at a time.

I Should Have Posted Last Night

I really should have posted last night. Instead I got sucked into the idea that watching some TV on Netflix would be more relaxing. Well, I dipped into an episode of Nip/Tuck, which is usually about two womanizing, ultra-rich, plastic surgeons and their adventures. This episode, of course, had to be about one of the men finding out he had stage-two breast cancer and his response - more womanizing, breaking things, drinking too much, screaming a lot about how he was dying. Not a good show for me to watch. I start to get a little wigged out when people talk about stages of cancer and I remember that the cancer in my non-TV body that is now being pummeled by chemo is stage four. I get a little jealous of people with cancer at less than stage four.

It's all very bizarre.

Then Pat and I decided that we should take the recommendation to watch Weeds, a show about a newly widowed woman who deals pot in her tony suburb. It's a good show, this episode just happened to be all about how the kids were adjusting to the loss of their dead father. At this point, Pat and I just got up and went to bed. 

I should have posted last night. That is the moral of this story. TV, movies, and most books have some sort of event, and by event, you know what I mean. Some horrible tragic hurt that the story revolves around. I just don't need that at all. I have my own event that I am trying to manage. With a goal of managing it gracefully when I can. It doesn't always happen the way I want, but I sure give it the best try I can.

I had a lovely evening with Bennett last night. Pat was at her Tai Chi class, and I got to put B to bed by myself. She loves her new school so much, I can tell because she has been telling lots of stories. We read books, I told her a story, she told me about five stories, then sang me a song that she made up. It went like this "oh my heart, oh my heart, my sweet little baby, go to sleep." I just about burst into tears of mixed up joy and sadness. What a gift to have such a life around me. 

And that's the thing I have to remember when I am trying to escape into TV. The only real place worth escaping to is my real life. That is where the joy and relief come from. To talk to the people I love, have a little prayer and light, that's where it's really at. Can I hear an amen? Amen.