calm, focus, hope and the need for it all concurrently

it has been a week with the new poisons on the loose. it hasn't really been that bad at all. lots of people probably feel this way most of the time because of the fact many people are rather lazy lumps who play video games and eat upsetting quantities of fast food. fast food and video games would make me feel tired and mildly nauseas. that's basically what it has been in decreasing amounts since thursday. thursday was heart day, mom's birthday, and we went on a big outing to buy cheesecake and dinner and lunch. for lunch i basically ate only my potato chips and a sprite. it was the best food i've ever tasted. friday i slept nearly all day. i didn't want to move around too much. all the sleeping was in preparation for dinner. i almost blew that, too, but came through in the end. a steak found its way to my plate, and it was the best food i've ever tasted, along with the carrot soup and carrot cake that bookended the meal. saturday brought a raging headache but more energy. we walked nearly four miles and ate some lunch and rested a bit, then, you guessed it, sleep. i sleep, generally, like i am dead. i don't move and i loathe waking up to cough, a necessary evil. saturday night we found our way to some vietnamese food, garlic bean chicken. it was, by far, the best food i've ever tasted. a late night viewing of "there will be blood" lead to an impeccible night's sleep and a decent sunday. surprisingly, i did not taste the best food i've ever tasted. nearly so, but not quite. perhaps the chemo hangover was wearing off.

it is funny how the days just blend together, little distinguishing one from another, when the chemo hangover looms. the sunny ones are better, warm ones better yet, but i really look forward to waking up and feeling like myself, not like i need to shake my head and go back to sleep. sometimes all the joints in my body are sore, like when i woke up on saturday. and i can't attribute it to any fun exercise or anything, just poisons that are killing the cancer inside of me.

i'm not happy to be back here fighting this thing again. that much is for sure. i feel kind of like i was cheated on by my own body. last time around there was lots of gusto, lots of talk of killing it and getting better and moving on with life. and when i got to move on it was great. now it is back and it probably wasn't ever really gone. i know that means little, because the nine months i thought i was cancer free were great. warm days, running, bike riding, the ocean, the lake, the mountains... i was really happy and so excited to have received this amazing gift after all that hard work. but it came back and i feel cheated. as much as i knew it might come back i really thought i got to be the one who won. i feel like i did everything right and it still came back - and that's the bitch about cancer. it cannot discriminate. it cannot pick and choose. i cannot reason with it and it cannot take into consideration, not for a moment, that i do not want it inside of me and it was supposed to be gone now. it is a shitty disease and it hides and looms.

i am fortunate, though, to have the drugs and the chance to fight. i feel pretty good; i climbed four climbs last night despite coughing like a fool. i slept soundly and today i'll do something outside for a bit. these are all good things. depite the cancer life has to go on, and i cannot spend any more time fretting over whether it will go away this time and what it is going to do to me. it is tougher this time, but i have done it before.