“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and whate I fear.”–Joan Didion
Thanks to my old friend, Tom Turner, I decided to try to post during my lunch hour at my new, improved (if wildly less amusing) job. I’ve missed posting to my blogs and missed comments from my old friends. When I don’t have time to write, I lose that sense of myself as an individual, separate from family, friends and work. So here I am.
The latest drama is that we found a spot in my brain, second mri showed the spot had gotten bigger and brighter. The day I was supposed to start radiation, we did yet another mir, that didn’t show anything. Everyone asks if I’m thrilled. Oddly, I’m not. My mom believes–and I suspect she’s correct–that I don’t quite believe that I’m out of the woods. Seems right, anyway. The fourth mri is scheduled for April.
I contine to develop my close personal relationship with large, intimidating machines. Encounters with my personal mri machines fill me with dread. It’s not a question of pain. It’s the sheer aloneness of the experience. No one is in the room with me. Ever. It’s just me and the machine. Maybe this is a feeling that no one who hasn’t had lots of experience with medical machines can understand.
I’m never been so much frightened by the prospect of dying as the prospect of another round of aggressive chemotherapy. I’ve told all my loved ones repeatedly that I don’t think I’m up for any more, no matter the consequences. When that prospect arose, I had mixed feelings. Which would be worse, the suffering before dying if I chose not to treat or the suffering of treatment? Then there’s the issue of putting my family and friends through the pain of watching the suffering of dying and, of course, my eventual absence from their lives. To whom do I owe the greater responsibility? Perhaps it’s a question I won’t have to answer just yet.
So there we are, for now. More about the new job, how the old job ended and whatever else crosses my mind–all coming soon.
Again, thanks, Tom Turner, for checking in on me. You’re the best!
