Falling Out of the Sky

I'm still trying to land tonight, back in our own little world and yet I still feel oddly disconnected from it, not quite tuned-in, not quite ready to expend the effort it will require to be a functioning and productive member of society again.

The chemo effects left me much more miserable this time. The pain and soreness set in on Thursday, followed by the nausea, vomiting, fever, chills, and night sweats on Friday. At some point during the night Friday night, I remember lying in the center of the bed, completely naked because I couldn't bear the touch of anything against my skin. In the dark throes of my fever-induced haze, I felt like I was lying in the middle of a vast desert -- just a small, dark spot in the middle of the hot, dry sand. At that moment, I was keenly aware that I was suffering greatly, but not really aware of much else. There is a "fog" of sorts that I enter when the chemo overtakes me. It leaves me disjointed and mentally very sluggish. I roil there, miserable, for a few days; the re-awareness that follows isn't much friendlier, either. At some point, I feel acutely and desperately awful; slowly, that feeling is gradually replaced with a general unease, a restlessness that is powerful enough to make me very unsatisfied with lying around any longer, and yet holds no actual strength to propel me back into the world. I lie there, squinting at the hazy glow of the sun as it beats down upon my helplessless, and I realize that I must make the conscious effort to come back into reality. For some reason, I am just not inclined to do that yet.

Part of it is the physical exhaustion of it all, without a doubt. We make the grueling trip, followed by the days of treatment and the fun things we squeeze in while we are there, and then finally the long, hard fall down the shaft of the chemo's side effects, with another long day of travel waiting at the end of the week for us -- and then, reality. Home, where I long to be while I am away. Home, where things are expected of me and the calendar marches by, full of obligations and commitments. Home, where I am most instinctively alive.

Still, I just can't shake the underlying feeling that there is an innate desperation in the very act of traveling so far for treatments in the first place. Such a high price is paid -- financially, physically, emotionally; all of our hopes are bound up in the silent prayer that this is not all for naught, but that all of the misery will pay off when I have my scans next month and we will witness a miracle.

In a crazy way, it seems like the sicker I get, the more life requires of me. That, to me, also smacks of desperation and extremism. Should we just accept the inevitable, spare all of the money and the physical rigors of travel, and cut our losses? Would it be better to yield to the exhaustion and the pain and the fear, and simply allow myself to rest instead of pumping in the poisons, hoping for a cure? I'm starting to remind myself of people I have read about who sell everything and fly to a remote clinic in Mexico for one last hope of survival. Are we only kidding ourselves?

I don't know the answer, and it is a question that plagues me in the lingering fog of my tired mind. For right now, there is no answer, and I will have to settle for slipping into one-day-at-a-time mode until I am ready to ponder the deeper mysteries of the universe again.

It's great to be home ...

:-) Sharon