It was also hard for me to be dealing with someone's death while mine was a lot closer that I would have wanted it to be.
I am also struggling as I try to get some things done. I was thinking last night about how we all have "things." In some ways, I imagine people read that statement, and think they know what I am saying/feeling. While I think it is good for others to see our similarities, there are times it is painfully clear that people really do not know what I am dealing with.
At the moment, my stomach is making all kinds of noises. Milk of Magnesia has become a close friend during these treatments. You might be amazed just how much my digestive system is affected by this chemo. Plus, it makes me quite dehydrated, which doesn't help things do what they are supposed to.
I am also thinking about a few conversations I have had with people lately about "business." They seem to think they know what I should do, and how I should do it. Perhaps they do, but in at least one case I made the statement, "what part of the fact that I am dealing with cancer did you miss?"
I find myself all too often having to express things about cancer that I just don't want to. It includes the fact that people, out of concern and interest and other "good" things ask about when I will be "done" with chemo. Interesting, I think, how that is somehow how we have been trained. We are trained that there will be treatment, and then...we will be done or dead. Most would likely opt for the more positive of the two, and assume there is an end in sight.
There was an end, in the beginning. I would get 6 months of chemo, and be done. At least, that was the goal. It was met momentarily, but within months, I was told that it looked like "trouble was brewing." In fact, it seemed cancer had decided to stick around. Within months I was essentially told that I would be on chemo the rest of my life. It was that devastating news that sent me on my cross country trip.
For as much as some may pay attention to what is going on with me, many seem to have no clue what my reality is, at least according to the medical profession. They have no idea how difficult it is to walk a path that acknowledges all of the many pieces that I face. How do I communicate things without claiming them?
On top of everything else, it is exhausting. Emotionally. Physically. Mentally.
There are times I am just so incredibly overwhelmed. I feel like I am in the fringe of depression. It feels, at the moment, more like a flirt than a full on dance with it. I really hope it stays that way, or regresses because a progression would really suck. Even being "here" sucks in its own way.
I am actually tempted to go back to bed, as much of what I have tried to do today has only frustrated me. How is it that there are times the same stuff can be so incredibly annoying and stressful and depressing, but at other times just a blip in my experience, and something I can speak to, even somewhat casually? Is it more worse at times, or do I just think it is?
Perhaps, at times, it can lean in either direction.
I really hope my life here is not going to end any time soon. But there are times like this, it is just so hard to make my way through how I feel, and the attached feelings and emotions. The contrast between the various MEs is quite striking, especially when I interact with the version that looks and sounds like here is nothing awry, or "wrong," as opposed to my current version that is struggling to do - or care about - anything, including writing this.
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