Chemotherapy, Part 2: December 2007 Archives

You can puke without interrupting the flow of conversation.

The chemo is over, and if all goes well, I'll never have it again, yet I still feel like shit. I still puked this morning, although weakly. I still have an awful taste in my mouth. I still have this gremlin in my throat that makes me want to voluntarily barf, as though there were anything to bring up. I am now 169 pounds. A week ago I was more than 180.

But worse than all that, or as as result of it, I don't really like myself at all. I have a feeling of worthlessness. I have little money, and I won't have any for a while. I hate my living circumstances. I feel stupid, listless, sad and angry, although not explosively so the way I did in October. I don't feel as though I can attend to anything properly. I wonder what I am doing at work and why they even need me at all. I better understand people that feel as though they are fakes about to be discovered. I have a make up exam tomorrow that I doubt that I will even write because I cannot even find the material I need to study. It's not even that hard, but I will fail this course. I will be a failure yet again. I can barely find the will to move. I feel like a skeleton in many ways.

Two days left of chemo, and I am feeling something that I am not familiar with. Something I have finally been able to identify. I want to be saved.

I never, or rarely have felt this sensation. But I desperately want to be saved by some outside agent from this viciously vomitous (not a word) state. I can't even trust my own saliva or my breath not to send me into gagging fits. (I am puking as I type this with one hand.)

Rose makes everything better. She can see the end when I cannot. She buys little things that I can eat, will draw baths for me when I can't bear it (can't take showers with this apparatus) and generally not forget about me. She saves me. She's away braving the storm, taking her daughter back to her ex. I can't wait for her to get back, although I will likely be too ill to show my appreciation properly. I can barely speak as it is.

But even with this generous support, I still slip into helplessness and despair. Some people feel like this all the time. I couldn't live that way, that's for sure. Tonight, I will go to sleep early to try to bring on day four that much sooner. Then there will be only a little more than a day left when I wake up. Sadly, I will be on my own since Rose has to work. And I will want to be saved again.

This time, it's the last time, unless something goes wrong in the future...