Jumping

Someone asked me once if I ever felt as if I left my body during sleep. This question was asked by another cancer patient in chemo. He is a doctor. Like a lot of people in that room, he has become my friend. We talk sometimes. Sometimes not. We have become very good at reading each other in that room. Someone will come in and they will just have that look. The one that says, "I am in a bad place. Leave me be." Or..."I am so tired. I am just going to sleep."

One day, though, a few others had the TV on FOX and both the doctor and I detest Fox news, so we were trying to ignore it by visiting. My right arm has been really hurting, sometimes so badly that I can barely move it without severe pain. I mentioned it to the nurse and she and I decided that it might be my rheumatoid arthritis. After she left, the doctor leaned over and said, "You have mets to the liver, right?" I nodded. He told me that often people with mets to the liver have trouble with their right arms, that the liver swells and presses on a nerve that goes directly up the right arm. 

"It hurts like a motherfucker, I hear," he said. 

I agreed. It does. The only relief I get from it is weed. It takes away the pain. I told him this and put a finger to my lips. He nodded. Cancer patients get it. Unfortunately the fearful people of Nebraska do not. 

That was when he asked me if I ever felt as if I left my body when I slept. 

"All the time," I said. "Well, at least...frequently." 

He smiled. "I admit that I enjoy it very much. I used to think that I was just dreaming, but the sicker I get, the more I believe that I really am leaving. It feels....nice. To get away, I mean. To get away from the pain." 

I agreed with him. It does. I hesitated and then decided to just share with him. I told him that sometimes I felt that I was flying into the past. Reliving great times. Great places. That I often return to the little house where I grew up. 

"Sometimes, I even think I talk to those who have passed over. It is never anything huge. It is just...there is a sweetness to it. Like, they are waiting for me. And what slays me? It's like it is no big deal, like it is just another step in a journey. 

He looked at me for a long moment. Then, he said, "After my wife died two years ago, I made her swear to try to give me a sign that she made it and was okay. I never felt ANYTHING. But, after I found out that I had cancer again and this time that I wouldn't make it? I started seeing her in my dreams. And it has always been just lovely and sweet. Our old dog was there, too. I always hoped that pets went to heaven." 

I took it a step further. 

"Not only do I believe that I travel in my sleep," I told him..."It has happened to me twice now where I think I landed back in the wrong body. I wake up and am in a room that I don't recognize. Sometimes there are people around me whom I don't know. But, they seem to know me. Is is a dream or a bad landing? I just don't know." 

He was quiet for a moment and then chuckled. "Ok. THAT would freak me the hell out. What do you do?"

I told him that I just close my eyes and concentrate and then wake up back to my same old body. That cancer stricken one. But, it is mine and I'm comfortable there. 

We talked for a while about how cancer has changed us. 

I no longer really care what people think. I just do me. There are people who are no longer in my life and I am fine with that. My life feels like it has my name on it.

I am not afraid to die. At first, I was. Now, some days it seems as if it would be a relief. And I feel calm.  

The hardest part about cancer isn't the cancer. It is the chemo. 

I'm starting to let go. I can feel it. I never thought that I would. I always pictured myself holding on tightly with my last breath. Now, I feel my fingers loosening on that bar. I feel my face turning up towards the sky. Curious. 

The love that I feel for those who have stood by me is the tenderest thing imaginable. I look at my children and can say that I did my best and that they are worth while, good people. I left my mark behind in this world and it is a good one. 

I don't mourn what I will miss after I die. After I die, it won't matter. 

We sit in our chemo chairs and sip our water, the drip-drip-drip of chemo going in our veins. The channel gets changed to HGTV. Our conversation changes to how that couple can afford to buy a million dollar beach home when she is a yoga instructor and he is a professor. 

We are still human after all.....just a bit more ethereal than most. 

P.S. The kitten comes home on Sunday.....