I remember March 15th, asking Scott if he had taken in the February 1st house payment. He kind of looked at me, laughed and pointed out the date. I lost over three months that are just a blur.
I do experience some "breathable" moments most days now.
I have practiced some, tried sitting at my desk for an hour or more at a time, and then am trying to do some mundane household chores - although the kitchen still makes me weak in the knees and reminds my gag reflex that it is alive. Sometimes, I can string up to three hours together - chatting, working some things in slow motion - then all of a sudden someone pulls a plug and I am groping for a bed. But three hours some days, are three hours.
I hate to say it out-loud because my body listens to words like these oh so closely, but my bone marrow is wimpy and needs much help repairing.
I thought I was doing pretty well, then went out for my mile walk yesterday in my fleece hat, fleece jacket - because I am somewhat cold most of the time these days - and I stopped in at my neighbors who always have a super-stellar garage sale and I saw her out setting up for the *Cinnamon-Lake-garage-sales* here this weekend at Cinnamon Lake, and asked her about an item on her porch.
The two times a year garage sales here are pretty much the highlight of the year for me when it comes to all things sales. It seems any little bit of Scotch ancestry down deep bubbles up and I am in looking-for-a-deal-stealth-mode.
I always hope that Scott has something to do those days, as he can lose interest alarmingly fast when looking at other people's junk. Downright fast. Like, "we stopped at three places, let's head down to the lodge for hotdogs"...... sigh.
I still remind him of the old wash tubs that were sitting out in someone's yard like fifteen years ago, that I didn't get - because we "took a break for his stomach and his sanity".....
I like meeting the neighbors, finding things the grandkids will like, and just sorting and sifting - it's in my brain mechanism. I love to find that one thing that I will love for the next ten years - all for $3.
But anyway, while walking yesterday and stopping at Millie's wonderful walmart-of-a-garage-sale setup, I thought I was doing pretty well - and she took one look at me and asked me if I needed a ride home.
We live two-tenths of a mile down the street. Maybe it was the fleece jacket when everyone else was wearing t-shirts. I don't know. Scott and I have noticed that instead of getting red-cheeked and flushed when walking, I now get rather pasty and drained looking, so who knows - she might have thought I was four steps away from death's grip and was wanting to save me from the shallow ditches along the way.
I still have some shortness of breath when walking, and depending on the day, have a little "brain-drift" which puts me places on the road I should not be, and some other issues as well, but doggonit - yesterday I was feeling better.
***
In this battle, the sprint to the end of this chemo treatment has commenced and I am praying that my blood cells hold up enough to allow me to get through the rest of the chemo without interruption. There is a little bit more recovery time now in between the weekly chemos, so that helps.
But I lay awake at night sometimes, and just talk to my bone marrow - begging it to want to fight. If it gives up too soon, I'm out for a week.
They don't know why my bone marrow is wimpy. They don't know why it doesn't gird itself up for the fight. It doesn't seem to remember the battle manual. Or maybe it has forgotten that the "Art of Cellular War" even existed.
'They' say "past-exposure". 'They' say over the years, something has knocked that down. 'They' say it's not important to know why now, it's important to just do everything I can to help it and fight.
I agree. My bone marrow, not so much.
And as Scott pointed out this week, the only water I can stand to drink the last five months because of the taste, comes to our house in a plastic bottle with the words "Pure Life" plastered across its plastic label. I could still be giving my bone marrow reason to want to just quit....... Once you start going down that road, it gets rather messy - it's littered with things that could go "boom" and knock out your bone marrow rebuilding ability.
Apparently, there could be a case made for almost anything I touch, taste, breathe, experience. I am just praying that whatever that is/was, that God can still start a miracle of repair in there. Deep inside my bones. Just renew and repair.
***
All that aside, my biggest fear of chemo, other than surviving some of its Hiroshima blasts, has been chemo-brain. My brain feels so small now. I feel like a four year old child searching for the correct words most days. I can cover it up for a bit, but the cover-up frays quickly and doesn't last long.
I read a study online that was connected to a trusted site, and it stated that women had been tested for cognitive ability 10 - 15 years down the road after chemo, and there was notable difference.
I believe that.
I have always liked having a decent IQ. Don't get me wrong - I'm not talking any genius here, although I know some people who are - but I have been a lifelong student of *Odd and Crazy* bits of information.
When Scotty brought home his Army manuals, I read them. Studied them. When watching army maneuvers on tv now in a movie or late night show - I know sometimes that it isn't quite correct - I know that they sometimes "don't have the manual".
I know if three soldiers are surrounded by "unfriendlies" - which one you shoot first.
But I was so impressed with their planning and how each look, each hand sign, each detail meant something. And it usually meant something that could end up being life or death. They lived those details. It was pretty awe-inspiring.
When my kids brought home their college text books, I read through a lot of them. I learned about sexual deviants before CSI told everyone on TV. I read all about human behavior. I read about society and it's response - both proper and improper to those that needed help.
I remember my foray into "the classics" and when I discovered William Faulkner, I was down right scared. Scared that he could tap human behavior that easily, that in-depth, that well. Scared that he was painting a picture that most of us want to pretend is non-existent in our societies. Scared that he moved me enough out of living on the surface to dream about deeper things. Not that my personality needs so much as a shove to do that, but he did it, deeper.
Here are some of my favorite quotes of his:
“Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.”
“The young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.”
“I feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth.”
“Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain”
Over a year ago, if prompted, I might have been able to recite some of those things that I had placed into my brain over the years. I had learned them, stirred them over and over, and remembered bits of it all here and there to "furnish" my life.
It's all gone now.
Thank God for google.
***
I'm not a singer, but for some reason my brain loves music. Now more than ever, I am a believer in the fact that what you put into a child's brain when young is what they are stuck with for life. I love the old hymns, because as a child, I memorized them easily and could sing them back easily when walking or sewing or driving - they were just there.
My brother sent me a print out of the hymn "My Jesus I Love Thee" and it was large enough print that I taped it to my tread mill and sing it in my mind while walking.
It makes me bereft to realize that I had memorized that five years ago to sing while rocking my grandbabies. It's mostly gone. I have to read it every day on the treadmill to get it back a little.
Someone posted this on Facebook today - and I love it.
Maybe because it includes the Irish countryside, and reminds me of all the tears and fighting and plain old pluck my ancestors had to just keep it "Christ Alone" - they fought for what they thought at that time was right to stand on, and tried to keep the Bible unstained in their lifetimes as much as they knew to do - and it's admirable what they sometimes gave up or sometimes did to hold tight to that ideal.
But my brain responds to this, wants this, desires this. It comforted me when young learning it in a church full of people that I knew, or when sang by my mother when driving - but my brain seems to connect to the "audio" part of it more than ever, and what I learned "audio" as a child is easy to dwell on now.
It's all interesting and bit scary. But if it's an audio Bible I need and listen to, or audio lessons from an awesome Rabbi, or songs like this - it is doing repair and renewal to an organ that concerns me most in this battle.
And trust me, I am being a bit more careful about what I am pouring into that part of my brain this time around. Maybe some day I will be singing this in a nursing home in my nineties.
And reciting parts of Faulkner maybe, but more likely, counting and repeating the gods of Egypt that God *threw down* in Exodus if I'm lucky.
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