Coffee and Shawnees

One would think that after six months - count them s-i-x m-o-n-t-h-s - without caffeine, that I would have kicked the habit and been well on my "recovery" road.....

Not quite.

I have had two sips of coffee in those six months and they were pretty glorious.  I think about them a lot.  I follow Scott around in the morning for aroma therapy.  If I cannot drink it, then I must at least smell it.   

I look longingly at any Starbucks sign within a ten mile radius. 

You have no idea my level of covetousness and outright screaming jealousy when watching the other chemo-women (imagine my voice going three octaves higher here) *not obviously in my study* stop at the free coffee machine in the waiting room, and order a latte. 

I usually look at Scott and say like eleven times - "how did I get the cancer that removes caffeine from my life??"  He says "I'm sorry sweets" and shakes his newspaper and sinks down lower in his chair.  He knows it's going to be a long wait if we are not called in soon. 

"I swear, that's her second latte!!" I hiss between my teeth.  "I know, sweets", and he sinks lower. 

If Scott is the first one off of the elevator, he makes a bee-line for the chairs farthest away from the coffee machine - the chairs with two large tv pillars and sixty seats between us and the free lobby coffee machine.

It doesn't matter - you can still smell it.  And for me these last months, the aroma has been enough.  I haven't felt like it would hit my stomach all that peaceably anyways if I were to drink it.  But put me in a room with 40 other cancer patients, of which 38 are drinking free coffee, and I suddenly feel like I am in fourth grade and the only one that did not get a birthday treat left on my desk. 

I am all undone. I am righteously indignant, but too old to act like it.  I am too old to whine about it, but want to so desperately. 

So I sulk a little bit. 

Scott tries to divert my attention with watching the two busy roads outside the large windows. I cannot take  my eyes away - we will have enough time later in the day to study the traffic flow patterns.  Now, I study the coffee machine.  

Some women with obvious hats or wigs on get three - three - of the small cups of machine lattes.  I just whimper..... 

Sometimes when I can't watch any longer, and since I do not want to be seen obtaining and holding the illegal coffee contraband when called for my appointment, I ask Scott to please go get one so I can at least sit and smell it, and he refuses.  "Just because it's free, doesn't mean you should waste it"....... I'm not sure when he became the door keeper of the local landfill..... 

Coffee and I had a relationship.  It ranked as one of my top five pleasures in life.  Both my son and his wife and my daughter and her husband knew the best way to get Grandmum in the door for a day of "baby-duty" - put on a big pot of Starbucks.  The aroma of that brewing at seven in the morning is still a direct connection in my brain with sweet babies and fun days.  

They used to want to play and race and have fun, but I would point to my cup and say "coffee-time".  They knew they had to sit out that first cup and wait.  It is a sacred moment to me only behind prayer and Bible time.  

I woke up the other night with a horrid thought - what if I can never have this again?  What if I am 'just supposing' that after chemo is done the ban will be lifted and I can go right back at it - and I can't??? 

Right now, this is the third scariest question on my list for Wednesday -- Question #3:  Can I have coffee again after chemo is over??? 

It occurred to me the other day, that maybe that is not fact, but just something I had "supposed" - like "when chemo is done, I can have six cups of coffee again".  Or three large, extra espresso lattes.  Just like I know everything else I get back - like a hair brush.  Like a meal that I can taste.  Like eating leafy green vegetables again.  Like going a whole week without feeling bone blistering tired.  

But, now I wonder. 

Maybe it's because I associate the feeling of "tired" with needing a "vente-latte-extra-foam-extra-shot-of-espresso"...... um yeah, vente means large.  The big cup. 

I had it bad.  They would look up and see me in the line at Starbucks and say "the usual?" And I would nod my head and they had it ready for me by the time I got to the counter.  That's what I ordered on the way to Columbus, before that coffee pot was even turned on...... Maybe it's because some smells are coming back to me and it just smells so good, that my stomach is sure it could take it. 

I can still remember my very first latte ever -- my boss Fred brought it in and sat it down on my desk and said "here, I thought you might need this today".... I forget what crisis was happening, I just remember the thought, the gift and the latte.   It was just how I like them to this day - straight up, no flavor, a little pinch of sugar and lots of nice foam.  It was "lean back in your chair, and take a little brain break" good.  It was "this could get me through the rest of the day" good.  It was smooth and creamy but not sickening sweet.  Ohhhhh...... Dr. Drew get me a room.   

I can remember that point of first taste, first addiction, and thinking on that makes me want one right now.  A pure latte can cure a lot of things - and they have over my lifetime.  I was on  a first name basis with the early morning Starbucks crew in the Cleveland Clinic for several months.  Three minutes from Heidi's house in Columbus is a luxury I can only dream of - a drive through Starbucks.  Heck, you can get to five - FIVE Starbucks within five minutes of her house - that is like Christmas every other month of the year!!  I like their park systems.  I like their rec center.  I like their well kept streets. 

But the best thing about Westerville is it's proximity to good, fast coffee. 

I would run two-year-old Addy to an appointment and pull in for a quick fix.  We had a song we sang to assuage her anxiety of the waiting time - a Starbucks-waiting only song.  She almost gave me away a few times when Heidi would offer to stop and get me something - Addy would start singing our Starbucks song.

I think that means I was hiding my addiction a little.

'They' don't want me to have it because 'they' say it does something to your enzymes that 'they' do not want to happen.  I could probably explain it better if I could hear it better, but when the subject comes up, my ears go deaf, and I just push the words away from my fragile brain.  It's too much.  

And what if my enzymes can never take this again and it is never to be again? 

*******

I can get through a lot of things, but the thought of not having my lattes or coffee any longer does indeed give me pause.  Long pauses. 

There is probably not enough anti-anxiety medication in the world to balance out those scales.  

And I'm sorry folks, but I have been just really fighting off depression the last few weeks, and coffee is about the safest thing to blog about.  (and I know you don't put "have been just really" together in a chain of words, but I just really did.) 

I have never run a marathon, not even a 5k race, but I kind of imagine this is what it must feel like towards the end -- your body is spent, you are really tired to where you can barely force yourself to keep going, and you really think about stepping off the path.  

They told me the end would be like this, that Taxal would take a big toll at the end of the *chemo-race*, but I didn't think it would be like this.  I'm good for a while, act somewhat normal and everything, then I just fall asleep.  Or my body just slows to a crawl and I lay down and rest.  Again. 

Or as my nurse told me a couple of weeks ago before inserting the two bags of blood being transfused into my body:  "you know you are feeling really bad when the best day of the week for you is the lowest hemoglobin count you've ever had".

I guess so.  

And I cannot get past the idea that I will end up in chemo again - *probably* - after surgery.  It's not so much the idea of chemo again, it's the idea that this cancer doesn't react so well to chemo the longer you treat it.

Everyone is upbeat, positive and ok with all of this except me.  And maybe Scott if he were deep down honest. 

We have been so blessed and I keep trying to concentrate on that, and it's only 3 more treatments for right now and I try to concentrate on that, but I do not even have the gumption for my daily walk here today.....

I could blame it on my gut pain and subtracting more and more foods from my diet.  I could blame it on my energy level and just not being able to do anything right now.  I could blame it on my blood counts, my cellular health or lack thereof, or any other long list of side effects.  I could blame it on chemo brain, and lack of concentration skills and lack of interest in most things now.  I could blame it on solitude and isolation for so long. 

Whatever it is, I just feel beat, and kind of have ever since I asked about the surgery results of the first five women. 

Which, coincidentally was the same week I started up chemo again. 

Not such a great one - two punch combination apparently.  

*******

I have a great fascination with Ohio history.  The Shawnee tribes that lived here and finally gave up Ohio had a long history of making folks think twice about crossing them the least little bit.  Some of the whites moving into the area were equally brutal, but reading what the Shawnees did to captives is morbidly fascinating. 

Upon drawing close to a village after a raid, the whole tribe would greet the returning warriors and make two lines that the captives would have to run through, called "The Gauntlet".  They were pretty intense about this - they used clubs and handfuls of thorny sticks and threw sand in the eyes to blind the "participants" - making getting to the end mostly impossible.

One such captive, Simon Kenton ran four such gauntlets in his lifetime.  While most captives could not complete the first one, he was captured and ran four.  Facing one of those horrid runs, he crouched at the end, made a decisive plan choosing the weakest point in the line and jumped over the line, then ran forever outrunning the braves chasing him down for a good while.

That's not such an easy thing.

I wonder when reading those stories how he walked up to "Gauntlet #2".  Then "Gauntlet #3".  How did he ever decide to keep on when he was being subject to some of the Shawnees favorite tortures?

I thought about that a lot this past week.  To some, the end of June means the first month of summer has flown by too fast.  To me, I am hoping that it means I limp across the 'chemo-finish' line finally.  That I can get these last three treatments in.  That I can look at that gauntlet line, and choose to run. 

And again if I have to.

Most amazing of all, is that Simon Kenton achieved such feats without friends nearby, without support from others of his kind, without coffee. 

I have to plug into his mindset.   

*******

And to quote Hebrews 12:1: 

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

....Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

I am leaning on these words this week -- "laying aside every encumbrance", "run with endurance", "fixing my eyes on Jesus".  Especially the "running with endurance" part........ 

It's hard to be honest on here, but I know that there are others that are reading and "enduring" a similar path, and I cannot make this sound like a picnic, or a stroll in the park some days.  It's not - especially "some days". 

Some days, some weeks, some long stretches of time are simple warfare like I have never faced and evil that I have not had to look square in the eye before. 

And I cannot just step out now.  I have to finish.  There's no choice, even if I don't feel it in me to keep methodically stepping until I step over that finish line just now. 

I could use a cup of coffee today.........