Visitors
It's tricky. Visiting. I want to be one of those with an open door, wide to everyone. I want to be one of those dying old ladies. The ones who impart good advice and still have a twinkle in their eye even as they grow weaker.
Instead, I find myself hoarding my privacy. The truth is that it is just plain hard to visit anymore unless it is with a very small, very trusted group of friends and family.
I'm not snotty. I'm scared. Not of dying. I have long jumped that particular fence. I am not afraid to die. I am a little nervous about the pain proceeding it. About losing control of things. Feeling helpless. And as things progress, I get less and less inclined to worry about how I look or act.
It seems as if so many people want to reach out and communicate with me, help me. I am grateful, truly. But, there is this part of me now that is spiraling into a smaller and smaller circle.
For you, I know it can be hard to be around me. I am no longer the person whom I used to be. That wise cracking co-worker. The witty, sort of elusive neighbor. The friend who was a pretty fun conversationalist at dinner.
To be fair, I have a lot on my plate. When going out, so much has to be considered on my end.
1) How am I feeling? Is it within the first week after chemo? Might as well forget it. I have trouble following conversations, staying present. I fall asleep if you look at me the wrong way. I tend to have little patience, so if you are saying anything that sounds stupid to me, I am probably going to just say, "God, must you act like an asshole?" instead of going along and getting along.
2) What is my pain level? Chemo side effects aren't just hard, they are excruciatingly hard. Try talking with a mouth full of sores. Or eating. It is hard and not something that anyone wants or needs to see. Chemo often causes pain in my joints that make it hard for me to walk easily. Getting up off of a chair has to be done very delicately. Chemo makes my feet and hands go numb, so when I pick up a coffee cup, I have to concentrate. When I walk, I have to be ultra aware of every crack, every rug. Sometimes, the pain from chemo settles in my back and I will be walking and suddenly I am limping like a crone.
3) Is my stomach okay? I kid you not, some days I can eat a sandwich.....and some days just the smell of meat makes me gag. I can never predict. Ever. And sometimes this will happen in the middle of a meal. I will be happily eating my hot roast turkey sandwich and suddenly I will smell that gravy and it will take on a congealed, gross smell. Or you will be eating a philly steak sandwich and I will be fine until halfway through your meal, I will no longer be able to stand seeing that string of fried onion hanging out of your sandwich.
4) Throwing up and diarrhea. Two things that are every cancer patient's nightmare. And they are also unpredictable. I always have to know exactly where the bathroom is at ALL times because suddenly my stomach will just....rebel. I will know that I have exactly 20 seconds to get to a toilet. This can (and has) happened to me nearly everywhere, most recently in a Wal-Mart parking lot. It was not fun.
5) Chemo fog. This used to happen to me now and then. Now, it is more frequent. We will be talking and suddenly I will simply forget things that I have always known, like.....if Nancy Pelosi is a democrat or a republican. I know. That one should be easy. It wasn't. Or, I will forget that your daughter just got married. In fact, that I attended the wedding. I will forget that. The worst part? The chemo fog eventually clears and I have to remember that that was me sitting there staring blankly while you talked about your daughter's honeymoon while I was in my fog. I will now have total recall of not only your daughter's honeymoon, but that we gave her a cookbook as a gift.
6) Fatigue. Constant. Never ending. I know that you believe you think that you know what it means to be tired. Trust me. You do not. I used to think that I knew what it meant before cancer, too. I used to sometimes come home from working all day and lay in the bathtub and feel so tired that I wanted to just go to sleep. That was nothing compared to this level of fatigue. This level of fatigue is being so tired that I can't figure out how I am going to lift this spoon of soup and bring it to my mouth. And keep a conversation going, too.
So, please show me mercy. I try. I do try. And sometimes I succeed. Sometimes, I can sit and talk with you or have coffee and pull it all off. Sometimes, it is a pleasant experience for all of us. It's just that I can't predict anything anymore. So, I can't really plan things anymore.
I know that you want to go out and have coffee. That you want to reminisce about those fun days at the office. I might do okay. I might not. I take it day by day which means that you have to do that, too. And what I hate the most? If I am having a bad day? You will go home and tell your husband or our friends or our family that I am slipping away. Maybe you just caught me in a bad patch. I have more than a few of those these days. So, having visitors is always dicey. I never know what is going to happen. Will it be the day when I can get up, actually drive somewhere and drink coffee and converse? Or will it be me dashing into the bathroom like a crazed lunatic as soon as I pull into the parking lot and slamming the stall door, trying not to make any noise as the contents of my breakfast come barrelling up front and center?
You get my dilemma. I do want to see you, I just don't know if I can see you. My ego is fragile these days.
So....mercy? Show some mercy? And let's do our best. You try to remember that I may not be the same person that you used to laugh with at the water cooler. I will try and remember that you always were a kind person with a heart of gold.
And let's do our best.
Instead, I find myself hoarding my privacy. The truth is that it is just plain hard to visit anymore unless it is with a very small, very trusted group of friends and family.
I'm not snotty. I'm scared. Not of dying. I have long jumped that particular fence. I am not afraid to die. I am a little nervous about the pain proceeding it. About losing control of things. Feeling helpless. And as things progress, I get less and less inclined to worry about how I look or act.
It seems as if so many people want to reach out and communicate with me, help me. I am grateful, truly. But, there is this part of me now that is spiraling into a smaller and smaller circle.
For you, I know it can be hard to be around me. I am no longer the person whom I used to be. That wise cracking co-worker. The witty, sort of elusive neighbor. The friend who was a pretty fun conversationalist at dinner.
To be fair, I have a lot on my plate. When going out, so much has to be considered on my end.
1) How am I feeling? Is it within the first week after chemo? Might as well forget it. I have trouble following conversations, staying present. I fall asleep if you look at me the wrong way. I tend to have little patience, so if you are saying anything that sounds stupid to me, I am probably going to just say, "God, must you act like an asshole?" instead of going along and getting along.
2) What is my pain level? Chemo side effects aren't just hard, they are excruciatingly hard. Try talking with a mouth full of sores. Or eating. It is hard and not something that anyone wants or needs to see. Chemo often causes pain in my joints that make it hard for me to walk easily. Getting up off of a chair has to be done very delicately. Chemo makes my feet and hands go numb, so when I pick up a coffee cup, I have to concentrate. When I walk, I have to be ultra aware of every crack, every rug. Sometimes, the pain from chemo settles in my back and I will be walking and suddenly I am limping like a crone.
3) Is my stomach okay? I kid you not, some days I can eat a sandwich.....and some days just the smell of meat makes me gag. I can never predict. Ever. And sometimes this will happen in the middle of a meal. I will be happily eating my hot roast turkey sandwich and suddenly I will smell that gravy and it will take on a congealed, gross smell. Or you will be eating a philly steak sandwich and I will be fine until halfway through your meal, I will no longer be able to stand seeing that string of fried onion hanging out of your sandwich.
4) Throwing up and diarrhea. Two things that are every cancer patient's nightmare. And they are also unpredictable. I always have to know exactly where the bathroom is at ALL times because suddenly my stomach will just....rebel. I will know that I have exactly 20 seconds to get to a toilet. This can (and has) happened to me nearly everywhere, most recently in a Wal-Mart parking lot. It was not fun.
5) Chemo fog. This used to happen to me now and then. Now, it is more frequent. We will be talking and suddenly I will simply forget things that I have always known, like.....if Nancy Pelosi is a democrat or a republican. I know. That one should be easy. It wasn't. Or, I will forget that your daughter just got married. In fact, that I attended the wedding. I will forget that. The worst part? The chemo fog eventually clears and I have to remember that that was me sitting there staring blankly while you talked about your daughter's honeymoon while I was in my fog. I will now have total recall of not only your daughter's honeymoon, but that we gave her a cookbook as a gift.
6) Fatigue. Constant. Never ending. I know that you believe you think that you know what it means to be tired. Trust me. You do not. I used to think that I knew what it meant before cancer, too. I used to sometimes come home from working all day and lay in the bathtub and feel so tired that I wanted to just go to sleep. That was nothing compared to this level of fatigue. This level of fatigue is being so tired that I can't figure out how I am going to lift this spoon of soup and bring it to my mouth. And keep a conversation going, too.
So, please show me mercy. I try. I do try. And sometimes I succeed. Sometimes, I can sit and talk with you or have coffee and pull it all off. Sometimes, it is a pleasant experience for all of us. It's just that I can't predict anything anymore. So, I can't really plan things anymore.
I know that you want to go out and have coffee. That you want to reminisce about those fun days at the office. I might do okay. I might not. I take it day by day which means that you have to do that, too. And what I hate the most? If I am having a bad day? You will go home and tell your husband or our friends or our family that I am slipping away. Maybe you just caught me in a bad patch. I have more than a few of those these days. So, having visitors is always dicey. I never know what is going to happen. Will it be the day when I can get up, actually drive somewhere and drink coffee and converse? Or will it be me dashing into the bathroom like a crazed lunatic as soon as I pull into the parking lot and slamming the stall door, trying not to make any noise as the contents of my breakfast come barrelling up front and center?
You get my dilemma. I do want to see you, I just don't know if I can see you. My ego is fragile these days.
So....mercy? Show some mercy? And let's do our best. You try to remember that I may not be the same person that you used to laugh with at the water cooler. I will try and remember that you always were a kind person with a heart of gold.
And let's do our best.
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