Part 13 & 14

Part 13 Bags In, Bags Out


Each day they bring me bags. Some are filled simply with water, some with chemo treatment, some contain magnesium to replenish what I’ve lost through the chemo treatment – an endless parade of bags. (“Are you sure that has my name on it?”) A patient sits beside me with her cell phone playing “Amazing Grace” as she reads her bible. I learn more each day about home buying and interior design from the HGTV channel. A lady is heading to the bathroom, assisted by her walker as Abe holds her IV bag (“tailgating”, as he calls it) and walks beside her. I wonder if there are “lucky chairs” to sit in, places where the sunlight enters at just the right angle, locations that might elevate my mood. I realize of course that I am responsible for elevating my own mood (but I will take all the help I can get).

A bald lady stands behind me. She had been on vacation attending a family reunion when she developed a “weird cough”. She went to the emergency room, and shortly after it was discovered that she had an abnormal growth in her esophagus. After radiation her condition was greatly improved, and she is due to end therapy by the end of this month. As she clutches her bible, she remarks, “I will be done, and He has got plans for me”. She lives in Woodville, an east Texas community, where she has attended various churches growing up. She eventually visited one that she said “flooded all over me”. She joyously claimed that she would be baptized there on the Sunday prior to her next birthday.

It’s now 3:00. The bags are depleted. Time to go home for today.



Part 14 Reality and the arctic blast


It is early in January. An arctic blast has charged into the day. The streets will be frozen by evening. At 5:00 I awaken, feeling shaky, with some circulation weirdness going on in my arms. I feel somewhat nauseous and bloated. At 6:00 I wake up again, feeling a little better after some more rest. The soft whirring of the portable pack goes on. I feel some comfort in its rhythm, but this is mixed with the anxiety whenever I move around and the rhythm changes. I have the jitters. This is the first morning I can remember waking up and accepting my reality. This is no bad dream.

I’m still contemplating Scrooge, who only had to endure one bad night of dreams to have his life transformed to joy. I remind myself that God has healed me already – this is just clean up, custodial work now. I need to believe this, and I need an invincible strategy to attack this problem. I will start off being healed and work my way backwards through the daily healing regimen.

At the medical center, I weigh in at 197 pounds, the most I’ve ever weighed in my life! It’s all water weight, but still…My blood pressure is okay at 104/60. I am besieged with TV ads about how to lose weight and start the new year off right.

Saline flush, anti-nausea meds, steroids….

I continue to feel bloated, listless – even the HGTV channel isn’t helping. A healthy looking male patient is talking optimistically about being in remission while still having “genetic triggers” that make his situation uncertain. I must keep flipping through the pages of Joel Osteen and Thich Nhat Hanh to keep spirits up and life in a better perspective. I find myself having trouble keeping up with the possible side effects of all the potions they are shooting through my veins (although it may be better that I don’t know). Abe comments that the rum and coke bag should improve my mood. Dr. Bu- drops by to further confuse and disturb me with information, options, drug prescriptions, and his accent, causing my head to swim. That plus the threat of freezing weather makes me just want to crawl into a hole. Then Becah breezes in for lunch like an angel brightening the room to sort everything out.

After Becah leaves for work, a healthy looking male patient with a pack strapped to his waist sits by me and proceeds to tell me about his three-tear stint with this, how he can’t work out and how bad his skin condition has been – just what I don’t need to hear. I wonder what I do with all this information, what to absorb and what to toss out when it brings you down.

That night at home I experience a tightness in my chest that I am hoping is just hunger pangs. I am watching the Texas/Alabama football game in brief segments in between groaning and generally feeling bad. I am unable to eat the vegetable soup I made that seemed a good idea when I was making it. My family returns from dinner at a Mexican restaurant and for a brief time I am hungry and manage to eat some beans and rice from their to-go box. I try sleeping early, but I awake every hour or so. Snippets of songs pass through my head which I don’t want to think about. I fear that when I hear them again in the future they will trigger miserable feelings.

Finally I doze off, minutes before the alarm jars me back into reality. Soon Bree is complaining that her jeans are too tight, and in-laws CC and GG go to work reeling her in. Later Brooke joins Bree for a chorus of “Hokey Pokey” and the day rolls on. It is 22 degrees outside, but I hardly notice. I am already numb.

We travel to Italy on the HGTV channel. A Laughing Cow cheese ad asked “have you laughed today?”

(This isn’t happening to me)
(This isn’t happening to me)