Part 30 Associations


I have discovered lately that some of the kids’ TV programs are distressing to me. It’s not the shows themselves, it is my own discomfort. In the morning, I am lying under the sheets faintly hearing coming from the den the refrain from one of the songs from “Agent Oso”, a show about (what else?) a bear who is a secret agent. In the late afternoon I hear the theme song from Disney’s “ Wizards of Waverly Place”, a catchy tune, but now it grabs my brain and relentlessly hangs on into the night (“everything is not what it seems, everything is not what it seems…”). These associations between my mental state and my environment can be unbearable, and I can’t seem to turn them off. I can only switch them to other associations, but the misery continues…


I awake at the end of my treatment week at 12:30 one early morning with an awful salty taste in my mouth. The cumulative effects of this week have taken their toll. I finish treatment number 28, though, and I’m almost out of these woods. Driving home, though, the queasiness kicks in and I am rethinking all this. I grind up my pills for the first time, as swallowing them becomes too challenging. Everything – even water – tastes horrible. I fall asleep early and somehow sleep, with scant interruptions, from one in the afternoon until 6:45 the next morning! Blessed escape…

I start my weekend jogging, trying to jar some improvement into my mood. Becah’s mom takes the kids to her house, after which Becah does some yard work. My salty mouth taste is alleviated some by sipping iced tea, and I kick back on the couch and watch the TAMI show, an old concert featuring Jan and Dean and the Rolling Stones. It surprisingly grabs and maintains my interest and is enjoyable throughout, no easy task in my present state of attitude. The next morning the house is quiet and the kids are still gone and despite my adoration for them it is better sometimes for me to wrestle with all this having fewer people around. When Becah leaves for the store, I consider another Joel Sunday sermon about choosing happiness. My friend Mike comes over in the afternoon, and we reminisce about some of the music we have written and recorded together and how we must do more. Later CC brings the children back, along with her mother GG who has returned for another set of days to be our extra pair of hands. For some ridiculous reason in my present condition, I have become enamored with watching food programs on FIT TV (“Lyon in the Kitchen”); obtaining all these great recipes for stuff I can’t eat (talk about masochism). At night I lose my temper before bedtime as I first spill my ground pain pills, then watch them clog up my tube when I try to ingest them.