Made It to Seven--This Is NOT Heaven

Well, here we are, over the rainbow again.

And you were there, and you, and you... Wait, who the hell are you?

Seventh treatment, in the can. Cut. Circle that take. Moving on.

(That's movie talk, y'all.)

 I am rapidly running out of fingers here.

This time seems significant, even though in a larger sense it really isn't. This is the time I make it over that midway hump. I've now completed more treatments than I have left.

Seven down. Five to go.

That's... well, I'm not really sure what that is. Five is still a lot. That's ten more (or less, but probably more) weeks. Two and a half months.

I'm also down in the valley of the shadow of death right now, so that tends to color things. My own personal long dark tea time of the soul. Ragnarok writ small on the walls of my bedroom.

I got my treatment on Monday. It's now Thursday.

Heat prickles. Nasty taste. Eyeballs the size of small planets orbiting endlessly inside my skull. Random flashes of hot pain in various and sundry parts of my body.

Misery.

Not quite that kind of Misery, but close.

But.

But I'm on the downhill side of this thing now. But I'm learning new things every day that help with all the nasty stuff. But I have amazing friends and family who continue to support me, even when I'm so far less than pleasant to be around that I can't even see pleasant from where I am.

But I've got an ace up my sleeve.

Here it is. It's pretty simple. It almost doesn't matter how bad it gets. The only way out is through.

I've talked about the whole "handling things well" deal. There's another facet to it. The "nobility" of suffering things stoically.

Another compliment. And taken as such. Seriously. Anyone who's said it to me, don't feel the need to apologize. It felt good. Just one problem.

It is utter horse$#!+.

There is no nobility in cancer. In chemo. In radiation.

None.

One of the things of which chemo robs you, and quickly, is dignity. And any sense that you might be noble.

Look, there's no one who wants to be noble more than me. I have visions of myself in full armor, sitting astride a beautiful white charger, my profile etched achingly, lovingly by the setting sun. I can see the shot. I know how to set it up, film it. It's practically a fait accompli.

Yes. YES. Something very much like that.

It's garbage. Rot. Filth.

Putrescence.

So I love The Princess Bride. Sue me.

It's the same kind of idiocy that occupies many a young artist's heart and soul. It certainly infected mine. That idea that an in order to create good art, one must suffer.

Nobly, of course.

NOPE.

I reject this as the nonsense it is.

It doesn't matter how I make it out of this. It matters that I do.

And I fully intend to make it out of this alive.

Oh, and here's my chemo socks for this one...

Not a great shot, but that's a Texas flag, y'all.

Yee haw!
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In our next post, we reminisce about all the lovely things we used to be able to eat.

Dammit.


Next post.