Part 20 31 Degrees, or shake shake shake

It is Saturday and the morning is chilly. Bree goes to a play with her next door neighbor. CC and GG come over in the afternoon to take the kids to a birthday party, then back to spend the night with GG. Becah has gone for a night at a hotel with her girlfriends, a chance to get away for a breather from all this. I am on a childhood kick, I guess, as I watch two of the old “Prisoner” series episodes then call my longtime friend Mike up and talk about the Beatles. He holds the phone out so I can talk to Zipper, my former cat who now resides with Mike (who took her in after we realized she couldn’t handle living with my family). The following morning is the last day of the month. I wake up every hour and the temperature has dropped to 31. I am alone in the house and have oatmeal and waffles. I feel better, though. I put on clothes to wash as Cat Stevens’ “Numbers” CD plays on my stereo. I fortify my mind reading Joel Osteen, then my body by lifting weights, jogging, and doing yoga, then I nurture my artistic streak by checking on some chords on my keyboard for a song I am writing. I put on another CD – the Beatles remixed “Love” album, that at times works but also seems disjointed (like me?). Everyone is back by four, my reverie is ended. At night we do baths, then Becah reads to Bree while I read nursery rhymes, “Barnyard Dance”, and “Goodnight Moon” to Brooke. Before turning in, I fear my feeding tube is somehow growing longer and uglier as it hangs from my stomach.

A new month has arrived. I carry Bree from her bed to the couch before leaving for work (she has decided that she likes to ease into her day by being carried to the couch to sleep a few more minutes before waking up to get ready for school). At the waiting room before treatment, a loud family and blaring TV make for a distressing combination. However, when I’m called back for radiation, the ladies align me quickly, and after the first attempt I am out of the session and home before I know it. I am fatigued though, with a slight queasy feel (both of which I have not really experienced much to this point). I stay home from work this afternoon, realizing that there may well be many more afternoons like this. After resting and my children returning from school, I help Bree write and illustrate her original story “Can Ice Cream Talk?”

Groundhog Day comes and I hear we are in for six more weeks of winter. Overcast, rainy weather is projected for the rest of the week. Dr. Bu- greets me good naturedly today as I wait for treatment. He works at the Kingwood center as well as at his other office, so I will periodically see him popping in to make sure that my body is handling this medical assault alright. When he leaves I resume watching a movie. Today someone has decided we need to watch a channel “for women”. I have seen movies on this channel before, and they always feature a woman being victimized by some heartless man. In this one, the attacker gets his justice when a bear comes and mauls him. (Makes getting pierced by a nurse’s needle not seem so bad!) I wait longer for treatment, since another person is running late. I am in a room which I see will usually be crowded with others who are receiving chemotherapy. I see some younger women and men as well as the more typical elderly. Many sit staring aimlessly, attached to their IV pumps, but suddenly a slim, older man dressed in western attire steps in briskly and entertains everyone with his positive banter. He acts as if he is controlling this disease, rather than being at its mercy. Which is a good thing, since I am discovering that this disease has no mercy. A nurse breezes by, handing me a small vial of medicine and asks me to shake it continuously until it no longer looks “cloudy”. She walks off to attend to another person. I have been told that if the vial is shaken clear, there will be less chance of my experiencing a sharp, throbbing sensation (like a bee sting) in my stomach upon injection. So I shake and shake and shake…