Because I Could Not Stop For Death

Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.

-from Emily Dickinson's, "Because I Could Not Stop for Death."

It's chemo day.  This morning I went into my office for the second time in the last year, and then met Jenny at chemo. We are sitting and waiting for the actual administration of the poison. I am sleepy and contemplative.

I am also very concerned.  It's hard to tell what the doctor is thinking, given his propensity for avoiding the conversation about prognosis--his utter refusal to discuss disease progression.  But, he came in incredibly subdued and remained uncharacteristically mopey. It is hard to say if he is worried about Jenny or if he has other patients, other things on his mind.  I would need the ability to read minutiae like that of a sovietologist to figure out the reason for Dr. P's mood.  What I can report is that Jenny's CA19-9 is up again, another 400 points, to 3700 and change. That is 4x higher than at diagnosis, heading very much in the wrong direction.

Jenny has no nausea today.  I got her some lunch, and she has been sleeping through chemotherapy, again, no nausea, no vomiting.  I'm so happy for her that they seem to have that under control.

The doctor did find Jenny's persistent--and now weeks long--hip pain concerning.  He seemed to have blown off any concern she had about the pain after a CT and x-ray both  came back negative for any disease or damage a few weeks ago.  Today, he had her show range of motion, had her walk, and seemed genuinely perturbed, perplexed, and troubled.  He finished by saying they would look at it again next week, but he was quite puzzled.

Perhaps the most difficult thing for us all is the not knowing.  Is this the week we learn chemo isn't working?  Is this the day Jenny or Geoff moves out?  Is today going to bring more uncertainty? A year will be upon us soon, and its taken its toll on Jenny and me.  The kids seem to be adjusting, which is heartening. There is no adjusting for Jenny, nor for me.  Her illness blocks out the entire horizon, like summer smog in SoCal. The affair is a black sun ⚫ burning through the haze for me, ever unclear of where I stand, or how I will live without her whether she lives or dies. I don't think this can change. We live each day, the two of us, with no end in sight, no hope or chance of a happy ending.  And this doesn't mean we aren't experiencing happiness. I have happy moments every day. And, this isn't a pity party.  Neither Jenny nor I sit around marinating in a maudlin slurry of thoughts all the time.  Being human, it does happen.  That, instead we are mostly carrying on--me with work, Jenny seeing friends, both of us with a relatively tranquil and stable home life--isn't admirable, amazing, or atypical.  People move through slow motion tragedy and continue their lives every day. Jenny and I met working with kids who were slowly dying, and those children laughed, dreamed, loved, raged, and carried on like everyone else. Still, it is a dissonant life we live--and a strange juxtaposition we find ourselves in--the rank ordinariness of day to day life, lived during tragedy.

It's after 10, almost 10:30. Jenny is bathing, in fact has been in the tub for more than an hour. I presume she is texting with Eric el pinché motherfucker.  She was when I brought her a cup of tea. This feels like the movie Groundhog Day, except in reverse. I feel like we are approaching the apex of tragedy, or I guess the nadir of happiness.  Your pick.  

I am not a person who imagined what my life would be like, beyond being desirous of being as rich as Thurston Howell III, my childhood was more wrapped up in numbing the pain of depression than fantasizing that I would be anything.  I honestly didn't think being anything was even in the cards. So, I can't claim things have turned out worse than I had dreamed.  To be honest, I didn't ever expect to be happy or unhappy.  I just bebopped along.  In truth, I have had a largely decent life.  I've experienced my share of great luck and tragedy.  I, with Jenny, have raised two amazing children.  I have people who love me, friends for whom I would give my life.  I still have many years, if I am lucky, to experience more joy and suffer terrible loss. So, I am already lucky.  I am already lucky. I just can't say that what is going on is a disappointment that is greater than the suffering of those going hungry tonight;  those whose loved ones are dying in uncountable numbers in India; or someone whose father went around the corner to grab a pack of smokes and never came back.  All of that is true AND these are still some of the hardest days I have known. 

I used to think Lot's wife got a raw deal when God, in his infinite love--oops wrong God, this is the God of the Old Testament (the real OG)--turned her into a pillar of salt as a punishment for being curious and looking back at Sodom.  But I think being made into a pillar of salt would be preferable to having pancreatic cancer.  It's quick, instant I presume.  Also, it spared her suffering, and spared Lot the ordeal of having to suffer the agony of his wife, him helpless to ameliorate, alleviate or end the suffering completely.  I still think that the Christian God is a bastard.  Between Job, Lot and Abraham, the dude was twisted.  And if a God were to exist and countenanced and/or caused such irrational, cruel and meaningless suffering to exist, I would want no part of it.