Snippets Before the Holiday - Life with Cancer

Have you liked my facebook page?  I've been posting little snippets of my life with cancer there, and here is what you have missed:

November 24, 2014 - Cleaning for Thanksgiving

Why did I spend hours today cleaning my closet when I have guests coming for Thanksgiving? 

ADD, that's why. 

I'd decided to clean off my living room coat rack so people could use it, and one item hanging there was my sweater.  It belonged in my closet, of course, so I took it to my bedroom. I grabbed a hanger, put the sweater on it,  but had to jam it in, there was barely room in the closet, and I realized there were a lot of empty hangers taking up too much space.

Okay, I'll take them out, that'll just take a second. Then I noticed all those sleeveless, sheer things in there.  It's too cold to wear them this time of year even with a sweater so I might as well store them in my summer bin, which has been conveniently left on the floor of my bedroom. I began folding them, neatly. Oh look, so many sweaters are in the closet! I'd forgotten about them. They're all on the top where I can't reach, no wonder I forgot.  Why not move them down so I can access them? Maybe we can lower the heating bill if I have something warmer to wear.   I'll put them down on the low rack and move my skirts and things I wear less frequently up high.

Hmm....I also have more tees than I thought, which I rarely wear,  so I can put them in a dresser drawer to make more room.  Nice.  I have lots of shirts I can layer with the sweaters, but if I'm going to layer, I need to know what color everything is, so I have to organize by shade - which means everything has to be taken out of the closet and rearranged.  So, it all comes out and covers my bed, and since I bought a bunch of flocked hangers, all my clothing can go on those and nothing will fall off, so I take each piece of clothing and give it a new hanger.  Wow, do I have a TON of dry-cleaning hangers leftover!  Well, my husband can take them to the thrift store, I'll just bag them up. 

Suddenly, I realized I've been in here 3 hours and people are coming over and I should work on the living room - one of those people is a crawling baby! I look at the bed, which is completely covered in hangers and clothing and boxes.  I'm married, which means I'm at the point of no return.  I could certainly sleep under this stuff, but sigh, not my husband. 

Or my cat. 

I have to finish.

Five hours later - dust bunnies roam where my guests will be, but my closet is color coded, tops are hung by sleeve length and style, and everything is on the same type of hanger, facing in the same direction.  Scarves, tanks and hats are all in bins, and I found an old Gucci purse I'd forgotten all about. (An ebay purchase I suspect is fake and which seems to be peeling inside, and is that a bug?) 

Maybe I should serve dinner in the clean closet.....once I throw away the purse.

November 22, 2014 - Cancer Rant (edited)

I am feeling annoyed and stressed and it shows up as my being short-tempered with those who seem self-absorbed especially. And yet, here is a self-absorbed post. Go figure!

The pain is bothering me - nothing new there but it's probably because the weather is cold. I'm sick of the game of having to refill meds: call 24 hours in advance, then drive to get them from the doctor's office, take them to the pharmacy, pick them up, sometimes twice a month since they run out at different times.  The holidays make it worse because everybody is closed and you have to time it so you don't run out and the insurance companies don't let you refill even a little early.....it's annoying, but if I don't have my meds I am going to be in pain on a family holiday. Makes me feel like a druggie, thanks Feds.

Also:  I'm sick of being tired ALL.THE.TIME.  I wake up and want a nap.

I'm stressed because there is a lot to do before Thanksgiving with a crawler baby, and not much help. My husband is a very good guy but cleaning is not in his skill-set and he has to be told step-by-step what to do, which is exhausting. He is not a worrier but I am - could there be a pin on the floor the baby could get?  It's been 16 years since I had a crawler.  Plus,  I'm very behind on things I need to do (necklaces people ordered I wasn't ready for, they are 90% made but I'm too busy and behind to get them packaged, how CRUEL of me is that?) and I haven't started my Christmas cards yet,  and not only that....

..... the fact that I am in remission is not comforting me.

It is making me see life as way too long - I'm actually feeling ready for it to be over, like I'm done. Like the best years are over and now it's just difficulty.   I know that's ungrateful.  Am I going to live like this for years? What seemed wonderful and manageable now seems like a long, long road full of discomfort and trouble now that it's not ending quick. I know that won't go over well with many who have cancer and are doing poorly, and why should it?  But it's the way I am feeling on this day.

Yes, I want to see my older son marry and yes, I want to see my other son graduate college and watch my grandson grow up....but the space in between doing those things? Right now, it doesn't seem worth it, because I physically cannot do things to pass the time without pain and needing a nap. It is not fun not being healthy, I guess.  And cold, being cold is hard.

I have a new worry:  my husband's kidney function keeps coming back bad and now he has to see a nephrologist.  Well, that doesn't help me mentally. He is 11 years older than me and at some point, I may need to care for him, we always expected that. And that is going to be a sad story now as I'm not that great at caring for myself.  I know better than to jump ahead from a bad blood test to a serious disease, but because of our age difference, I do wonder what will happen if I don't die and he can't help?  Two sick people is one too many.  Our plan was for him to be sick but it's been me.  That's okay but how can it be both of us?

I guess this type of thinking is the adjustment from terminal illness to chronic illness.  What was joy at the thought that I had life left, years maybe, is turning into the realization that those years might not be great ones.

I should be working every day, we should be going out and enjoying our life, seeing plays and going to dinner, doing some traveling and all of that.  Now that my husband is retired and my son is in college, that was our plan. And, we can't.  Because of me, because I don't feel well, it's entirely my fault.

Don't I know better than most plans are an illusion? I do. But I'm still feeling that loss. It's a new one because I thought the loss was immediate but now it seems a long, slow decline.

This too shall pass.  My guess is it will pass the second daylight savings comes back.

I figure I will post it, as I think some people think I never have these days. And they are wrong. They aren't often; I love life, even diminished, even not the way I'd planned - but these negative days roll around for me as they must for everybody who has been sick for years. I'm not fond of whining but sometimes, you need to get it off your chest.

I KNOW I'm lucky, but I'm human.

November 20th, 2014 - Day after Perjeta/Herceptin Infusion

I'm in bed, bones aching, throbbing. I'm in a weird half place; not tired enough to sleep, not feeling well enough to get up to get to the painkillers. So I sit in bed and just...hurt. I look at my arm next to me and it's glinting. WTF? I have tiny pieces of glitter stuck in the wrinkles of my arm, sprinkled from wrist to shoulder, really, I'm just showered in glitter. It's not a good look. Beautiful, tan, round twenty-year old arms look lovely with glittered mica floating on the skin, but not 56 year old beef jerky skin arms; the glitter settles between mini-folds and the cracks of a hard life. Why glitter? It must have come from a Lush Christmas moisturizer bar that I slathered on last night. I didn't see or know that there was glitter in it, but it's sparkling at me today; winking at me. 

In summation, I'm in bed, sick from cancer treatment, smelling like cotton candy and glittering in the light.


Other Stuff

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If I am not able to post before Thanksgiving, I hope  you have a wonderful day, full of food, family, football and whatever your tradition is.   I know I will - my youngest son comes home from college tomorrow.  I cannot wait, and if allowed, will throw a photo or two on facebook.