Oct 21 2008
Life.Love.Cancer: Part IV
Editor’s Note: This is part of a ten-part series written by The Butterfly Temptress.
For information on how you can help, please the introductory post or go directly to the http://thebutterflytemptress.com.
Click to read Life.Love.Cancer: Part 1
Click to read Life.Love.Cancer: Part II
Click to read Life.Love.Cancer: Part III
I can’t even begin to tell you what it feels like. They deliver the news like it’s no big deal, like it happens every single day. Their eyes won’t meet yours and they glance at the clock above your head or clear the reminders from their pagers.
All you can do is watch your body from above and try to decipher the words. It’s like they’re trying to talk to you while you’re underwater in a swimming pool. You know, it’s warbled, a little muted and you want to hold up your finger to motion for them to give you just one minute to come up for air.
Except that there is no coming up. Your chest heaves and you begin to cry silent tears. There is no air to be had. Your nose runs and there are rivers of mascara on your cheeks. Later you will look in the mirror and ask yourself why you bothered to wear it at all.
Even now, that’s how it feels. Like it’s happening to someone else. Almost like I’m watching a made for television movie except the main character looks a whole lot like the fat me that I see in the mirror.
The hardest part of the entire process is the internal mental dialogue. You ask yourself a million times if you’ve thought it all out. Did you make the appointments for the radiation? Did you schedule chemo for the days when the kids had school? Did you remember to tell those kids that you love them even when they’re mouthy?
You smile at everyone whether you feel like it or not. You hold your nearly bald head high when you tell the old ladies of the hospital auxiliary that you’re doing fine, getting better every day. Then you tell yourself that you could always find the next Dr. Kevorkian because at least then you would die with at least a trace amount of dignity. All the while, you smile that thousand watt smile that your husband says is the one he knows isn’t real.
It’s not always self-pity. Sometimes you’re just downright pissed off; at the doctor, at your husband, at the nurse who holds the bags of chemo. You want to scream and pull the IV out of your arm like your former patients used to do all the time. You want to ask the clergy who prays for you why God decided that this was your cross to bear.
Friends don’t know what to say, so they stop calling or emailing. Family members don’t visit and gossip among themselves about how they think you’re doing. You can rely on your husband and your mother, but you hate to because they just look so damn tired.
It’s an emotional high wire act that can go wrong at any moment. Which mask is it today, the happy but in pain or the honest and unbearable? My husband says it’s a roll of the dice and he’s right; except I’m usually not the one rolling them because cancer has already done that for me.
Luckily, I do have my writing. When the world is a mess and my emotions are jumbled, I can sit down and blog. I am lucky to have met some great people through my blog and through other things I have written, so I try to let that be my focus.
Someone out there has it much worse than I do. This week someone has already lost a lover, buried a child, or been diagnosed with HIV. Someone in a country far away doesn’t have enough food to eat or money to pay the rent. Others have no jobs and no idea if they will survive another night with an abusive spouse.
When I look at the big picture, I’m ashamed of myself. For as much as it seems has been taken away, I have been given so much. My children are healthy. My husband still has his job. My mother and father love me. I can laugh, smile, and breathe.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
[...] 1 Click to read Life.Love.Cancer: Part II Click to read Life.Love.Cancer: Part III Click to read Life.Love.Cancer: Part IV Click to read Life.Love.Cancer: Part V Click to read Life.Love.Cancer: Part [...]