8/4

“You trying to relax is the most stressful thing in the world.”

This is what Jaimie said to me yesterday as I was trying to do nothing. My doing nothing was wiping down the stove haphazardly.

Yesterday was a a hard day. My chemo brain started earlier than normal. It usually sets in Friday night but this time it set in Thursday around 3pm. That’s no fun. All of a sudden, I just couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t write well. I was misspelling words and not able to edit. I still feel the effects this morning and that’s after I slept for 12 hours last night. I had to. I had to sleep. It’s all I can do. I can’t write, I can’t do anything, I’m attached to a bag of medicine. No fun. But I do this to have fun in the future, right? This is going to keep me alive, so I can have days I enjoy coming up soon. I felt so bad for Jaimie. We couldn’t do anything. We just sat there and ate leftovers and then I went to bed. It was all I could do. All I could think to do. All I wanted to do.

When I can’t write is when I get scared. When my brain doesn’t feel right is when I get angry. I can feel nauseous and achy, fine, but let me think. They say do brain activities when you feel this way, like take a class or do a cross word. But thinking and focusing are the most frustrating things in the world when I feel this way. Take a class? Just sign up for one? Learn a skill? Ok. Like what? Sewing? Do a puzzle? I can’t focus on anything.

I’m writing anyway though, because I want to document this process, and this process is not easy. Even when you handle it fairly well. Sometimes I don’t feel like myself, and today is one of those days. So was yesterday. Tomorrow, I guess we’ll see.

It’s like I’m thinking in mud. Like my brain is walking through quicksand. Everything feels difficult. I had to write an invoice this morning, and that took me 15 minutes when it should have taken 5.

My hands and my brain don't work as well together. That’s frustrating. Lots of spell check but sometimes I spell the words right, they’re just the wrong words. If that happens today forgive me.

I’m in the grind section of chemo. Just grinding it out. Number 8. On Wednesday, my nurse asked me how asked me how long my treatment was going to be. I was like, shouldn’t you know the answer to that question? Apparently it wasn’t marked on my sheet. I said, “12 I think. It might be longer.” She said some people are on it for years. Fuck me. Years? I hope she was wrong. How do people do this for years? How do they work? How do they live? I’m in that stretch where I really want this to be over but a watched pot never boils and chemo that you want to end will never end. That is a fact of life.

I wish I had something flowery and upbeat to write today. Some positive insight to this situation. But today I’m just dealing with it one day at a time. The faster I want it to end, the slower it will go. Some days you just have to get through. That’s true if you have cancer or not. That is why I have to not think of it as ending. I have to think of it as one day at a time. That is my life right now. One day at a time. It’s fine. It’ll all be fine.