A few quick thoughts before I head off to chemo.
- Fuck this shit.
- I don’t want to.
- All of the above.
I’m in tears this morning at the thought of sitting in that (super comfortable) chair. I’ve been doing chemo for over seven months now in a relentless fortnightly cycle that quite literally keeps me alive. It keeps me alive whilst simultaneously giving the impression of slowly pulling my body apart, one membrane at a time.
Weird stuff starts to happen when you’ve been doing treatment for this long. Like Pavlov’s Dogs, one starts to respond before the needle has even gone in. My anxiety nausea started vaguely rocking my stomach yesterday and today my mouth is watering at the thought of the weirdness I’m about to experience.
Over the last few days more than twenty people have commented that I look good. Despite my hair being at that length our mums embraced in the eighties, I reckon they’re not lying. I look good…for having cancer. But in about eight hours time I am not going to be looking good. I’m going to be looking horizontal and I suspect large snot bubbles will develop as I cry myself into a deeper hole of self-pity.
My brand of resilience doesn’t look like someone putting on a brave face and showing up with a knowing smile on their face, grimly accepting all the harm is doing them good. My resilience looks like crying and being full of dread and worrying the port is going to get blocked again and trying to remember all the side effects I need to share with my oncologist and not flinching when they put the needles in and not clock watching as the hours tick by. These days its headphones on, blanket on, eye mask on and popping an Ativan to help me sleep through it. It’s two days with a pump coming out of my arm and into the belt around my waist and trying not to melt the connecting tube while I’m at the stove top. It’s losing my shit over dinner with friends in a crowded restaurant and telling them I’m not ready to die.
Two of my closest friends described me as a combination of dramatic and stoic. I fully understood the dramatic bit. I do love a bit of that. But I’d never thought of myself as stoic. But maybe I’d been thinking of stoic as the stiff jawed, back straight kind of emotionally blunted stoicism. I think my stoicism is the heart on the sleeve kind. I let everyone know how fucked up I feel about treatment, I let myself feel all the feelings, I cry during yoga, and then I SHOW UP AND GET THE FUCKING TREATMENT BECAUSE IT’S KEEPING ME ALIVE AND I HAVE NO CHOICE.
And then I feel like shit for four to five days. Less shit for another few days. Functional after that and then almost myself again on day 13. And then guess what…
Oh god…I was about to comment on your IG photo that you look amazing (which you do), but instead I’ll say good luck, and can’t wait to see you looking amazing again in 2 weeks. Sending you all the good thoughts to get through xox
Kristie I have no comment good enough to say to you, I just wish like you that this nightmare ends soon and you are on the road to full recovery . Thinking of you .
Sounds like a shit bunch of fucked !!
I do think u look fabulous too- maybe surprisingly even with a snot bubble- remember the 80’s were all about the accessories !!
Just gonna send you good vibes and hope that this session is way less shitter than the last ones x
Sending you big, warm hugs through this device from thousands of kms away. Here’s hoping they feel close to real and you know how loved you are, every day, but especially today. Keep up the dramatic stoicism Kristie. Xx
I wish we could all do a day for you so you didn’t have to do all of it on your own. Thinking of you constantly xxx
Hi love, Thinking of you a lot and admiring your courage and writing skills. Love Meri and Paul
Sent from my iPad
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