Grief

Finally, I’m able to cry. I don’t mean hysterical crying on the chemo ward. I mean, feeling my anxiety, fear (yes that too) and grief with my feet on the ground.

I’m in the Sacramento airport right now, en route to my second round of chemo. I know exactly what to expect. Last night, I finally let it go. I’d been stressing, triggered by something A does that she doesn’t mean the way I hear it. I finally figured it out, and I told her. I started crying, and she held me. She cried too. It was good for both of us, to finally get it out.

This is happening in my body. I have no answers for why my medical team does anything; I just have to trust them. I don’t control any of this—I can say stop, and have when I was miserable and hysterical. I don’t dare say that when I mean it. I don't want that taken truly seriously.  I want too much to live.

I woke up this morning with a line from Pat Humphries’ “Walls and Windows” running in my head. I reached for my mp3 player, and listened to it again. And cried again. Here’s the line that got me:

“Did you sing your children lullabies, to calm their fears at night?”

I say I’m not afraid. Usually I mean it. I’m not consciously lying. I’m truly not afraid of death, though I don’t want it right now. I’m not existentially afraid of sickness or suffering. But this loss of control really gets me.

And the intermittent life. I feel well right now. I won’t Friday, and for at least the next two weeks. I will literally be sick half the time. And when I’m well, I can’t imagine that I am as sick as I am. No way do I have a potentially fatal illness. Look how alive I am.  See what I can do.

Then I go back to Riverside, and back to the beginning. Back to doctors and drugs and bad reactions and side effects. Back to nurses waking me every two hours for a vitals check. Back to coming home completely washed out for a week. Back to the incontrovertible knowledge that yes, this is real. And I don’t know what the ending will be.

My body is either responding as we speak, or it isn’t. I won’t know that for weeks. The next time I come down will either be for more of the same, or an even tougher regimen. I have no way of knowing. And no way of controlling. All I can say is go or stop. I won’t stop this (before my doctors do) unless it becomes truly physically intolerable.

It’s the intermittentness of sickness and health, and the knowledge that I may or may not ever truly get better. My well times could be as good as they are right now, or less and less and less. We don’t know.

I want my life back. And I don’t know enough yet about when I’m well and when I’m sick, to snatch it. I just want this to be over. And I want to be healthy.

When I was diagnosed two years ago, survivors came out of the woodwork to support me. Now I know what they lived through. I am learning what they knew.  I know why they were so strong, for someone just entering this struggle.  I appreciate them even more, for choosing to be there for me.

I hate this.  But I'm glad I finally feel it.  I'm not sheltering myself anymore.  I say I want to be whole.  Grief and fear are part of wholeness.  The only way I can do this is with my eyes and heart open.

I need to post this quickly; we’re boarding soon. Keep me in your prayers, everyone.