Yep, I just got up from bed- it's 6pm. I feel a little humanity returning, for which I am incredibly grateful. I was in bed all day, literally all day. Not watching movies, not reading books, just dozing and lying with my eyes closed. Is it laying or lying? I don't know. I am just happy to be up and feeling like maybe tomorrow will be better.
I will tell you what it's like. I've heard chemo described as God playing with gravity, and some days are just days you can't fight gravity and have to be horizontal. I mostly agree with that, but I more feel like the ray guns on Star Trek are set on stun and they got me. Otherwise I would want to read or watch a movie, it feels just like I've been stunned.
I had a very hard time with guilt today. I felt like an utter failure. That not being able to get out of bed is anathema to who I am, and I felt a deep sense of failure. This doesn't help at all. I also wondered if I might be clinically depressed, which happens to people who get cancer. I don't think so. I bet I will know more tomorrow. Both Mary and Pat reassured me that I am not a failure, that chemo is a hard thing to deal with and sometimes bed is the only answer.
Thank God for Pat being able to take Bennett to work at the last minute. Thank God for Ruth and Theo getting our veggies for us and thanks again to the highest power for Liz and Julie taking Bennett for an adventure in the afternoon. All of these folks pitched in so I could stay in bed and work on my WBC.
So many people called to see if I was okay, it was really a wonder to get so much help.
Last night I didn't post that Dr B agreed to the Neulasta if my WBC count if low at my next chemo. He called yesterday to tell me that he is working with the insurance company to get it okayed. He thinks he has a good case because I've already spent a week in the hospital due to a compromised immune system. Neulasta, I've read online, is between $3k and $7k a shot. I don't know why the range, but holy cow! that's a lot of money. Neulasta doesn't come without its side effects- 10% of users get severe bone pain and/or flu like symptoms. If you look at the glass half-full, that means 90% don't. I am going to cross my fingers and toes that I am in the 90%. So far I have lucked out on a lot of side effects - I've only barfed a few times and I don't have the diarrhea everyone talks about. That might be because I only eat soup and Ensure and the occasional yogurt. Anyway, I hope I will continue to luck out.
I feel like I have to say thanks to everyone for your support. This is going to be a long long long shitty process and I appreciate you all sticking with me. I think about it all the time, how important all this support is. How could I have gotten through this day if so many people didn't step in to help? So, thank you from the bottom of my super fast-beating heart.
some of us spend time in bed all day and we don't have cancer and our WBC count is normal.
ReplyDeletesometimes we are just tired.
life can be tiring.
we aren't failures.
we are human.
we are frail
together.
Hang in there Ruth and leave the guilt behind. For now, you are doing what you need to do, what you must do, to heal. You are not disappointing anyone, because you are doing the stuff you are supposed to be doing.
ReplyDeleteBennett looks great, dribbling her milk back into her glass at Snow Farm (ugh!). She's an angel and she knows she's loved (especially at Snow Farm).
Sooooo many distance hugs to you,
Linda (and Evan, too)
Who would you be failing? Getting up, running around, forcing yourself to do something other than your body and soul are asking you to do would be closer to failure in my opinion, because you wouldn't be helping yourself get better.
ReplyDeleteEasier for me to say than do, though. I know I would be feeling something very much like you're feeling, and asking the same questions about the meaning of staying in bed all day. My work ethic and analytic self-criticism would draw many of the same conclusions and raise the same feelings. But listening to these voices would be like calling customer support at the cable company when you need a healer or a counselor. Totally wrong number. I think everything from the day in bed to the feelings you had about being there are all natural, and it’s great you worked through them as quickly and as well as you did. And I’m grateful you stayed where you were, and let your healers and counselors do the trick. (Cable company would’ve taken weeks to send someone out anyway.)