Part 28 Meanwhile life continues…

GG, Becah’s grandmother, enjoys taking leisurely walks these days to Randalls and having coffee at the outside tables, when she is not busy washing our clothes and dishes and straightening our home and performing impromptu nursing jobs for me. Becah likes to bring home Mexican food at night for everyone (except me) to eat; I sit at the table and watch while drinking fortified shake after fortified shakes trying to regain my lost weight which has now dropped over 11 pounds. At bedtime, I get regularly interrupted as I try to read nursery rhymes to Brooke, who decides, I guess, that at age three she is big enough to read them to me.

The next few days conclude a better week in general as it warms a little outside and they have made me the new mask to improve my treatment. However, I try to eat food again to no avail, and the tube is leaking again when I eat. My mouth has gone berserk, jumping back and forth between excessive dryness and excessive moisture. My blood pressure has been so low that for two successive days I get no shots for my salivary glands, initiating fears that too much damage is being done to my system in the name of “treatment”. Becah returns GG to her apartment for a reprieve in her caretaking duties and, with the kids, meets a friend for dinner. I rest, then get revitalized watching rock concerts on DVDs and can’t stop tapping my feet despite myself.

Bright sun on Saturday morning can’t take the chill off my body – my neck is much redder now due to the radiation. My mouth is drier than I imagined it could be. We drive to my parents’ house to celebrate my mother’s 84th birthday. We stand in the backyard while my mom gathers lemon seeds for the kids to take home and plant so we can have lemon trees in our back yard. At night, our family lies down together on the couch and watches the surprisingly touching animated film “Up”. I relax the next morning at home while Becah goes to church and lunch. I appreciate the house and the quiet. Although I am strengthened by others and need interpersonal activities to keep my mind off all this, today I am content to just wallow in it, for better or worse. Sometimes I struggle to do anything, that is how debilitating this disease can be. And I don’t feel like I have it as bad as many do. The pain has been bearable.

It is probably a good thing that I can’t foresee the harder days that await me around the bend.