I am halfway through chemo – hopefully. This unfortunately the worst it gets. I just spent the last week in a total daze. I couldn’t figure out how to open a bottle of water the other day and I’ve just sat and stared at walls feeling the poison coursing through my veins. I’m so fatigued that I can barely walk to the bathroom and back without needing to take a nap. My ability to communicate with people is almost completely gone and it takes a lot of effort to come up with the words I need to say.
The good news is I feel a little better today and that I’m halfway done with chemotherapy. This will be something that I will hopefully look back and use for strength when I need it for something a lot less painful.
The A’s & Kansas City game last night was phenomenal. Not the outcome I wanted, but still one of the best baseball games I’ve ever watched. It’s going to be hard not to be a little bit of a Royal fan. I do love me some small ball.
My dad gave me a ride to one of my chemo appointments and asked me what my thoughts on Jimmy John’s.
I’ll be turning 38 on Friday. A month or so ago, 38 didn’t seem that old. It seems reasonable. Why wouldn’t I be turning 38 years old? Now that I’ve gone through this cancer, 38 seem ancient. I feel so tired and fatigued. I’m like those old guys downtown that I’m trying to walk around really fast, but they just don’t walk in a straight line and are super slow. I wake up at 6am and feel every part of my body. I do a diagnostic of what hurts and why it hurts. Then I start taking pills. I got the pills I take right when I get up, the ones that I take when I eat and the ones before bed. I’m turning 38!
About an hour ago, I took the most painful excruciating shit of my life. I was drenched in sweat and thought I was going to see gravel in the toilet.
When I first started realizing what my days were going to be like when I was diagnosed, I had envisioned this great creative boon for myself. I believed that I’d be able to write, draw and create with the time I was going to get with cancer, but the treatment for cancer had taken all the energy and focus I needed to accomplish that. So, I just lie around thinking of things that might be creative. Maybe when I get better I’ll let it lose on the world.
This is all I can write tonight. Thank you.
Good read Dave. Again I love reading your stuff . I will someday see you again and have one of those Bill Dave chats..we’ve had some beauty’s . “Love you bud”
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Oh I work at ^am Rise at 3:30 every week day and take 8 pills twice a day plus a shot in my stomach every two week for the last 10 plus years just to keep my body well enough to keep working , So I can empathize with the “Pill Drill” regiment. I only have Rheumatoid Arthritis , but life changing non the less and very painful It has changed my life ..often I am still angry about getting sober and the sick … But it is what it is
https://www.facebook.com/notes/bill-jeffords/what-is-rheumatoid-arthritis/10152722592342236
Great read Dave, helps me realize how grateful I’m for my health, My day is going to be a breeze compared to yours. Keep up the fight and you’ll feel strong again someday soon
Happy birthday Dave. Did you really think you’d take up oil painting while getting Chemo? That’s my attempt at a joke. But yes you’re creative intelligence will never be the same. You’re going break the sound barrier. Don’t forget about the little people;-)
Whenever I have a really strenuous shit, Carly Simon’s “Anticipation” runs through my head. I’m not even kidding.
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You’ll get thru this buddy – you know you will.
1) I’ll tell your dad all about Jimmy John’s if that will save you the time and energy of such a rant.
2) The first graf or so reminds me of Vonnegut’s “Timequake” where people become stuck in routines and no longer actually control their actions so that when a timequake happens and suddenly people are forced to consciously do things, 90+% of people don’t know what to do so cars and plains crash and it all goes to shit. It would have been worse if Vonnegut lived to see people staring at their phones all day.
3) I am recommending Harvey Pekar’s “Our Cancer Year” (the American Splendor guy) which was the creative result of his year battling cancer.
Take notes. Write later.