Sunday, December 31st, 2006
“–whatwashisnameanywayIthinkyoucan’tfindhimbecausehe’sincustodyinGalesburgandwhataboutthat
ThinToWinareyoudoingthatgoodluckyouknowifyouwanttoloseweightyoucouldgoonthechemodietworkedformetothetuneof50pounds– ”
“Trey.”
“–youknowI’vegotaweek’sworthofchemoinmy’fridgeit’syoursifyouwantitIthinkthecitydidagoodjobonthelightsthisyeargot’emall
uponthebuildingslookscoolhowwasChristmaseveryonegetwhattheywantedprobablyallBattlestarGalacticaforyouI’llbet– ”
“Trey. Shut up.”
“–didItellyouI’mdonewithLauraBushnomoreFirstLadyFantasiesabouthernomanshehadcanceranddidn’ttellanyoneuntilaftertheelection
sanditwasjusttooKarlRovianformedidtheythinkpeoplewouldn’tvoteforWifLaurahadcancersoI’mdonethinkingaboutschtuppingthe
FirstLadyontheWhiteHouselawnand — ”
“Trey!”
“What?”
“Shut the hell up. I swear to God I’m going to shoot you in the head.”
“What’s the problem, big boy?”
“I’m not sure I can be your friend unless you go back on chemo.”
Sadly, Officer Friendly isn’t the only one who’s said that. Most of my friends seem to prefer me on chemo. Basically, they’re all saying, “Calm the frack down!”
Hehehehehehehe.
I’ve got more energy than I know what to do with, is what’s going on. The last bits of obvious chemo have finally slipped outta my system. I’m sleeping much more soundly (five or six solid hours a night rather than ten or twelve plagued hours), I’m eating well, I’m exercising everyday. I’ve got energy to burn baby.
And it’s making my friends nutty. Which, of course, makes me laugh at them…as though I needed a reason.
I’ve gotten back to my writing, though I still have stamina problems because I still haven’t refound the butt I lost during the weight loss. And most of the writing I’ve done on the new novel, about 25,000 words done while on chemo brain, doesn’t suck as badly as I thought it might.
Work is going well. In fact, come February 18, I’ll be headed off to the academy for twelve weeks in anticipation of being moved out of the jail and onto the road. So now, rather than being the guy who strip searches you after you get arrested, I’ll be the guy who arrests you when you do terrible things to your dog with a fork.
(anyone get that reference?)
At the bookstore, I’ve managed to work quite a few days for LuAnn the last few weeks. Hell, she might’ve gotten more days off since Christmas than she got the entire year last year.
So things are going well right now. In fact, when they went this well back in the pre-cancer days, one of us would make a joke along the lines of, “Things are going too well, when is the brain tumor going to hit?”
Hahahahahaha…not quite so funny now.
I’m sitting here now, trying to think of what else to write about. There is nothing. Everything else is normal and my life is pretty boring. And yet, I’ve spent so much time cutting it open with a boning knife this past year, I feel like I should have something else interesting to say.
Nope.
So I guess that means I’m just like every other blogger out there, tapping madly away at the computer keyboard, somehow convinced that my life is interesting to anyone other than me. Quite the little conceit, don’t you think?
Actually, I kind of wish that coffin salesman would call back. Now that I’m not quite so foggy brained, I might be able to keep up with him.
Posted in The Cancer Chronicles | 2 Comments »
Monday, December 4th, 2006
And so it’s over.
And there was no revelation.
I had wanted to learn something, to have a great epiphany and discover some massive reserve of strength or vast store of single-mindedness; something that would make me believe I had become a better person, a more civilized or caring person, a more compassionate and loving person.
That was a large part of why I wrote the Cancer Chronicles, so that in the writing, I might polish a diamond out of a chunk of bullshit.
Squat.
When it was over, at 5:07 last night, it was just over. Anticlimatically so, in fact. I gave the first shot, loaded up the second syringe, gave that shot, then tossed the entire works in the biohazard container. I stood up and announced to the deputies in the squad room that I was officially not dying of cancer anymore.
And that was that. No trumpets, no 3000 voice choir, no nude dancing girls.
Just…a shot…a shot…garbage.
Something that had begun with so much drama and pain, so much uncertainty and fear and anger, ended that easily. In fact, the end was almost boring in its banality.
I guess that’s good. I guess flat and boring was better than the alternative, better than a repeat of the nightmare of November and December of 2005. Yeah, I could live without ever going through that bullshit again.
And yet, there was just a touch of drama at the very end. About a week ago, LuAnn made some off-hand comment to me. I felt like crap — tired and cranky — and she said something like “If you hurt, just go to bed.” But the tone was more along the lines of “Suck it the hell up already.”
I knew that wasn’t what she was saying, knew it in the core of my being, but I couldn’t get it out of my head. I stewed all night, couldn’t sleep at all. The next morning, angry and righteous and — more importantly — rock solid, I tried to tell her how the year had really gone.
But instead of solid, I fell apart…completely. Tried to tell her that it had been unfair of her to tell me to suck it up because she had no idea what I’d gone through. To prove my point, I heaped on her a pile of garbage so deep and wide and it left us both crying.
See, there were bad moments this past year, moments more terrible than I would have thought possible, much worse than what I told anyone. Eight or ten times, the light-headedness left me unconscious; one glorious time behind the wheel of my truck at a stop sign. I had felt it coming on and was racing home. Didn’t make it. Also didn’t kill anyone, amazingly enough. There were vomiting sessions that went on for twenty/thirty/forty minutes and left me with nothing coming up but blood. One exercise session — when I was alone in the Princeton PD gym — I coughed so hard I got dizzy and passed out on the treadmill. Fell, banged my nose against the thing until there seemed to be blood everywhere, and skinned the hell outta my knee because the tread took a few seconds to stop.
There were nights where I was so scared I cried myself into a stupor.
There were times, especially after my biological father died of cancer in March, that I thought I was going to die. Nothing dramatic about it, just simple death. This is it, it’ll be today. Or maybe tomorrow. But before the end of the week. I’ll be dead and at least there won’t be anymore hassles with the insurance company over the chemo.
And I never said a word.
LuAnn has had a hard year. Between worrying about me, trying to make sure there was money enough to buy the chemo, trying to run the bookstore with damned few days off because I simply couldn’t work, she’s had an absolutely shitty year. So I said nothing about the couple of times I went to the hospital or passed out on the toilet like a higher-rent Elvis.
I didn’t want to worry her. I didn’t want her carrying anymore baggage than what had already bent her back. As goofy as it sounds, I love her so much I didn’t want to give her anything else. She didn’t need anymore health bullshit from me. Cancer, the occasional bad back, and the heart attack, were more than enough.
At the same time, she hadn’t said anything to me about how worried she actually was, how tired and scared. Because, she said in the middle of our cry-fest that left two feet of accumulated tears in the room, she didn’t want to toss a few extra bodies on the grave yard of my worry.
Yes, we should have talked. Yes, we should have sat down and made sure each of us knew exactly what was going on with the other. But sometimes — most times, in fact — judgement is clouded by emotion.
But now it’s over. I still have a bit of weakness and am still chemo-tired. And what in hell is my body going to think come Tuesday, when there is no shot? Shit, it’ll be as shocked and probably scared as my colon was last December when all I could eat were salads and fruit.
Way back at the beginning of this, I wrote a Chronicle about the metaphor and how easy it was. I was in the middle of massive daily chemo and outside, the sun was hidden behind clouds while a foot of snow covered everything. I felt then that I was getting hammered in by everything, nature included.
Two days ago, 19 inches of snow pounded Princeton in something like five hours. Then the wind started to blow. The snow on my front yard was nearly two feet deep and it buried our two cars, one halfway up the driver’s window.
This morning, mere hours after my last shot, I started digging. It was cold but the sun was out and blazing where it hadn’t been a year ago. Unlike then, when I felt everything closing in around me, this morning, I was digging out.
Digging out. Literally. Metaphorically.
Completely and absolutely.
I think I’m gonna be okay.
Posted in The Cancer Chronicles | 9 Comments »
