Done with infusions

I had my last infusion today. I went in at 9, and was home a little after noon. Slept until about an hour and a half ago.

A blood test Sunday will tell us next steps; either I go in Monday for self-injection lessons, and follow that regimen three times a week for a year, or I’ll be done. It’s up to the toxicity of my liver. I know it could go either way.

I just finished a routine I kept with the daily regularity of a part-time summer job: get up, go to the infusion room, be treated, go home, sleep it off. Self-injections would continue that mindset, in a smaller way: make me sick to keep me strong; sacred challenge in the epi-pen. Go through my Monday as normal, poke, go to bed. Repeat every Wednesday and Friday.

(I never thought of the infusions as sacred. I kept my head down and forced myself through them. I didn’t have the energy for any other approach.)

I’m preparing myself for the idea of being done with cancer treatments. I don’t even know how I feel. In some ways, I’m fine; yay, the worst is over. I’m also still sort of shattered. Not in the sense of falling apart all the time, but shellshock. “WHAT was that all about, and what am I doing here?” (“Here” being bed, in my best friend’s house, resting from treatment, rather than working like all of my peers. And here, in this psychic space that few of my friends really know.)

Cancer interrupted my life with a howling wind. It taught me and it changed me, and it gave me some good gifts—it also devastated my basic sense of trust that each day will come, and go, and be followed by another. It seems so random—I’m young, healthy, strong—yet it came with the force of intent. Not to kill; as far as we know this didn’t invade my body. But to change.

Changes in habit: sunblock and hats, daily. Every time I get ready in the morning, I’m going to remember this spring and summer, and where I’ve been.

Changes in mindfulness: body and life are gifts. Do not forget that.

If I’m clean for five years, I can be done. That’s a long way from now. Oncology and dermatology visits will remind me.


(Pic from here.)

Sometimes I’m afraid, still, and sometimes I’m not. I don’t fear death, but the disease process of cancer, if it returns. Had a conversation with a friend last week, partly about mortality. Mine is in my face now like an African warrior mask, trembling, challenging me. “Be alive.” It has no intention yet of migrating to some subtle awareness in my back pocket.

I want that warrior mask right where it is, for as long as it has things to teach me. But sometimes I miss the ground I used to walk on, also. I didn’t know I was taking health for granted; it had never been taken from me.

I’m going to be working with this for a long time.