F*CK CANCER

Get your stylish, in-your-face cancer cap here at this site. Hurry, before they're gone!

Couple of tough weeks since the heart attack. . .so much has happened, and yet nothing has happened, has been very hard to write, even to keep it short and sweet, even just to fill you all in on the bare minimum . . . I keep wishing, hoping, praying that things will get better, start to turn around for Bob, but everything just seems to be at a standstill. No, not even standstill. More like moving backwards. Through sludge. Thick, heavy, sticky, mucky sludge, that sucks feet into the earth, deeper and deeper, making every step more difficult than the last. . .

Oh, yeah, and you read that right, back there a few sentences ago, I said I'm praying. My prayers are even getting longer lately, they go kinda like this: "Dear God, please . . . " But, that's where I get stuck. Please what? Heal my husband? Shrink his tumor? Give his life back? Let surgery be scheduled soon? All of the above? Pretty please, with sugar on top? And, I promise to clean up the potty mouth, if you do? (Though, I just watched a documentary the other day, Crazy Sexy Cancer, and one of the women featured in it, a self-proclaimed "rock 'n' roll tour manager" who has a rare form of cancer, sells these knit hats with the words, "F*UCK CANCER" emblazoned on them. I'd love to have one, but then that might negate the "no swearing" clause in that prayer . . .oh well)

Seem so absurd, so naive, so fresh-faced Polly-Anna-esque, self-centered, even, to be praying for such a thing. God didn't stop a massive earthquake that gobbled up tens of thousands of people, God didn't stop a horrific fire that raged through a Minneapolis apartment, killing nearly an entire family, God hasn't stopped hundreds, thousands, millions of people from dying horrific deaths every year. . . thinking that God will hear my voice and actually listen to it is almost laughable . . . someone once told me that God always answers our prayers, just not always in the way we want him to. Well, if he doesn't do what I'm asking, then that's not answering my prayers. I have not prayed for Bob to suffer like this, for so long, to have his pain get worse, to succumb to panic attacks, to lose his appetite and several more pounds in the process, but if this is how God is answering my prayers, I don't want to have anything to do with this game. It's cruel, it's wicked, it's God-awful mean. Fuck cancer.

Monday, March 13, 2010

Heavy, heavy heart tonight . . .like lead-brick-sitting-in-my-stomach-making-it-hard-to-breathe kind of heavy . . . been a tough week or so for Bob. Haven't been to the ER for several days, but his pain has increased dramatically over the past few, despite increasing some of his pain meds through a visit to Palliative care last week. Tonight, it's as bad as I've seen since this all began, so I called Palliative Care on-call tonight. Bob said his pain, even after taking meds, is at a level 9 (medical professionals use this 0-10 pain scale, to determine the intensity of pain a patient is experiencing, zero being no pain, 10 being the worst pain possible) and she upped several of his pain meds over the phone as I frantically scribbled her instructions and read them back several times, making triple-sure I got them right. And now, it's a wait-n-see game. If he doesn't feel better in a short while, I'm hauling him into ER and demand he be admitted. Right now, he's sleeping, very soundly, evident by the soft snoring coming from the sofa, so let's hope this continues . . .

Earlier in the day (morning, actually), I called Bob's oncologist's nurse, to let the doctor know that he's been battling constant nausea for the past week, has very little appetite, has lost even more weight (from where it was lost, I can't imagine, as he has nothing left to give), and brought up the pain issue again. The nurse said she'd call Doc S, let him know what's going on and call back. Few minutes later, we're told Doc S wants to see Bob today at 11:30 a.m., instead of Wednesday, as was originally scheduled. At the appointment, we gave him the lowdown on what's been going on since the discharge from the heart attack—he gave us some suggestions—call cardiology about the low blood pressure, call Palliative Care to get some insights on the pain management.

Then, at the end of the appointment, almost as an afterthought, Doc brought up the CT scan that was done last week. . . {{{big sigh}}} I'm not even going to go into it right now, as we don't know anything for sure, but his interpretation of it wasn't the most positive. I felt that old familiar throbbing at the base of my head start up again as Doc S. continued his spiel, the ol' brain swirling like a blender on puree, whirling up my words so I couldn't even begin to form any intelligent questions in response. But the basic gist of it is, he's not jumping to any conclusions till we meet with the surgeon on Wednesday, who will tell us the game plan for the surgery—the if's, when's, what's, how's and everything else we can get from him regarding the surgery. "One day at a time," Doc S. said . . . Fuck cancer . . .

So, back to tonight. . . decided to sleep in the living room with Bob, to keep an eye and ear on him, make sure the pain meds were doing the job. If not, I'd be close at hand to hear him. Dogs had gone to bed in their own spots—Gaia in the kitchen, on the cool tile, and Rocco in the bedroom, on the bed, happy as hell to have the whole thing to himself. While lying on the floor, on my makeshift "bed," I had myself a meltdown of epic proportions. Started crying and couldn't stop, which lead to more crying, screaming, pounding pillows and thrashing in my blankets . . . to the point where I think Bob thought he was going to have to call 911 and have me hauled away. To the point where the dogs came into the living room, to see what was up. Gaia took her stoic post near the patio doors, Rocco came to my side and started licking my snotty nose and teary eyes, then pressed up against me as close as he could get . . .

Poor Bob. Last thing he needs is a wife folding like a $3 suitcase when the going gets tough. He doesn't need this from me, he needs to trade in this "advocate" for someone stronger, someone who doesn't break so easily, who doesn't crumble like a cookie when the going gets tough. I cried throughout the night, on and off, even when I could hear that, finally, for the first time in days, Bob breathing deeply, finally finding sleep. . .I don't know how people get through this, and I'm on the safe side of cancer, the spectator side. I am not experiencing the immeasurable, insuppressible pain, the nausea, the weakness, the never-ending mental fog, the constant physical, emotional, mental reminders that my body has been hijacked, not knowing, even one iota, how all of this this will play out . . . I am just an outsider to all of this, which makes my responses all the more absurd.

Tuesday morning . . .

Woke to a wonderful spring thunderstorm around 4 a.m. Started out with soft rumblings and soon gave way to a good ol' downpour, accompanied by timpanic thunder, paparazzi lightning. Dogs started acting like freaks, Gaia pacing from room to room, Rocco following suit, not really knowing why, I'm sure, except that his center of the universe was acting like a brainless twit and, well, Monkey See, Monkey Do. Gaia finally bounded down to the basement, I followed. She went to the patio door, so I let her out, Rocco followed, into the thundering darkness pierced by intermittent flashes of light. She went around to the side of the house, under the deck above our bedroom and lay down. Not sure where Rocco went—maybe under the lower deck? Can't figure that one out—being so scared of thunderstorms that she has to go out into it. Aversion therapy, perhaps? Somehow, I'm feeling a life metaphor being expressed here, but can't quite grasp it . . .

Bob got some really good sleep last night, and he said the pain in his leg has decreased considerably. Living well through pharmaceuticals . . . I couldn't sleep after the dramatic dog scene, so got up to write. Heart is still heavy, eyes are sore and puffy, but Bob is sleeping soundly, his breathing soft and rhythmic. Fuck cancer. . .

Need to end this on a positive note—here's a pic of hyacinths growing in "my" front garden (I say "my" because I didn't plant them, remnants of the previous owners of our house). They are so fragrant—I was hanging laundry outside the other day and kept smelling this divine perfume. The lilacs aren't in bloom yet, no other fruit trees or anything close by. Then I looked down at the hyacinths. I walked over to them and knelt down beside them and breathed in deep. Yep, the hyacinths.

The storm is passing, now just a distant rumbling toward the east. Black night sky has given way to gray muted light. The trees in the yard are saturated in color—charcoal black trunks scratched against the grey canvas, I swear the yellow-green leaves are even bigger and more brilliant than they were yesterday . . . another metaphor that I can't quite decipher . . . fuck cancer . . .