A Whole Heap o' YakYakYak

I want to say something true, but I don't know what. There's no point in telling lies in a vanity blog at nearly one in the morning.

I wish I were made of sterner stuff. Today after work I read the official report from my bone scan. It arrived in the mail in one of those Kaiser envelopes that I've come to dread. I didn't learn anything new really. I knew that the cancer had spread to a vertebrae, and a few (three) ribs. I learned that there's suspected involvement of another vertebrae, and also involvement of my pelvis and another bone (that Eric and I had to look up on the internet).

This wasn't really new, but still... the words on the page were upsetting to me. I wanted to cry. I played computer games and vaguely listened to Iron Chef on the television instead.

I really do wish I were made of sterner stuff.

I guess we spend our whole lives gathering (or not gathering) little bits of gumption like acorns. We pile up all of our strengths, all of the ways we know to cope with disappointment or fear or whatever, and hope it lasts us through whatever winters fate throws our way.

When my mother was sick with cancer I would sometimes lie in bed and read to her a bit. When she was dying from cancer she said she was too tired to listen, so I would just lie there. I told her that I didn't think it was "her time" to die -- that my gut told me it wasn't true, and that there were probably all sorts of things out there that could help her.

For a few years there she had fallen under the influence of Shirley MacLaine. She would try to read auras (limited success), and she drank moon water (tap water that was left outside under a waxing moon) to aid her in her attempts at astral projection. Laugh if you'd like. At least she didn't dabble in Christ.

Anyway... lying in bed with her, I suggested that there might be some sort of alternative therapy or healing that would work for her. She believed in that kinda stuff, right? I remember her response very clearly. "You can research that if you'd like. I'm too tired to read, I'm too tired to think."

I feel pretty okay, and I already have an inkling of what she meant.

Hopefully, hopefully, I have a long haul ahead of me. Tonight I just feel it's pathetic that I have so few acorns. And I'm too tired to gather more. I'm too tired to read, I'm too tired to think.

And another thing (she said), I'm afraid that long before I'm gone I'll stop being me. I'll be in pain or drugged up -- one of the two, certainly -- and I'll just die by drips and drabs. It's deeply troubling to my controlling nature to imagine this.

I need to toughen up, somehow. Soon!