I’m living my own eulogy.
A Mark Twain fantasy, I’ve fielded requests to make quilts of my clothes, to donate them to Veterans. Wonderful ideas, which I now I think are too soon. The love and concern is beautiful, but I can’t help but feel gawked at. I am very dysarthric, and I can’t eat well. It’s hard for anyone to witness, even me. But I welcome all the love and natural concern.
Though I wonder, did my patients ever know, just how I truly never knew what they were going through?
I was previously healthy. Could my newly type 2 diabetic patient sense I could never know his chronic disease? I plead ignorance.
Many of the radonc nurses and my Uber drivers have shared stories of their own cancer battles and radiation courses. I can tell instantly. We have a bond that soothes something silently. Clear on face value, I now know for sure, the value of shared experience is undeniable.
I’m on radiation day 12, chemo 11: I’m enjoying a chemo only weekend before plunging back into radiation tomorrow.
I’ll be honest, this is unpleasant and terrible. If anything is expected in my sudden sonic boom, this is common, especially in week two and three of the Stupp Protocol. I only eat soft foods, but during my requisite dessert at the end of the day, I fall asleep from exhaustion. It takes me everything to go to go the bathroom and brush my teeth at bedtime, which I’m fastidious about especially now with the thrush.
My biopsy, hospital stay, meds, chemo, and radiation costs are all coming from GoFundMe. We’ve linked Uber to it too. I take Uber Xl to radiation every day, it’s the perfect height for me, and always fits my wheelchair. It gives me special joy knowing I glide to treatment each morning because of all of you.
This, my sonic boom, is something I don’t control, but we’re in this boom together.
On Thursday, after hearing rumors, I took a brief joy ride on the way back home from radiation. I had a good guttural laugh taking this picture, I-95S at Ext 44, N Kimberly Ave en route to the VA, this cycles as one of few. I couldn’t believe it, life is a dream.
So who will possibly deny, that despite everything, everything is perfect.
I am honestly the luckiest. To be right here, right now.
With you all.