Hasten Down The Wind

Entry 1    7:57 a.m.

" She's So Many Women, He Can't Find The One Who Was His Friend"

I'm going to a cardiologist next week.  Even absent an MI, something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Heart problems run in the family.  Killed my uncle.  So, I now have a cardiologist.  Moving up in the world, also, just around the time I receive my AARP card.  Perfect.

I am typing with one hand.  it isn't terrible.  It does allow for fewer typing errors.  I will make an appt. to get an MRI on my shoulder and back today. I feel like some old engine that's lost its driving wheel.

Meanwhile, Leiney is working two jobs.  She went from camp counselor to door knocking for Amnesty this week.  12 hour days.  Outside,  Wrangling kids and engaging in political conversations. She is exhausted, but in heaven.

In other news, or lack thereof, Karina, the friend Jenny claimed to have had breakfast with last week, was over this morning.  Jenny lied.  They didn't have breakfast. I was here, as Karina was catching Jenny up on all the things that have been going on in her life this last spring and summer.  Odd. given they just met for breakfast last week. There was no reference to last week, no, A"s I was telling you last week."  In fact, it was evident they haven't seen each other for a very long time. Annoyed, I removed myself from the sectional and texted Jenny.  Garbage in, garbage out.  Her initial response was, Karina doesn't talk about her private life in public.  I have know Karina for 30 years.  This is bullshit.  I said so, but didn't press the point further.  Later, when I was back in the living room, Karina showed me pictures of Robby, her son. I asked what he was up to this summer.  She said he is landscaping.  That was the capstone for me.  Jenny always debriefs these lunches. Meaning, I hear every detail of the lives of her friends, whether I ask or not.  Last week she didn't, I wasn't surprised. So I asked questions after she got home from that purported breakfast with Karina. Questions such as, "How is Karina's son?" and  "What is he up to this summer? " "Fine," she had told me, and "He isn't doing anything, just hanging out."  

Jenny stuck to her guns. But, that means nothing. She swore to me repeatedly she didn't go to Vegas with el pinché, swore it had only been going on a short time, that she never spent our money, et cetera. Same shit, different day.  I know she is cheating, I should just presume she is lying. And she is. 

Yesterday the painters next door got overspray on Jenny's car. I haven't told her because she loves that car more than me.  Oh, wait, that statement is not very descriptive.  How about, she loves the car more than she loves Scrabble, and boy howdy does she love those tiles. The overspray isn't terrible. Today, the painter tried to tell me that the overspray wasn't from him, that the paint didn't match. It was the definition of pissing on my leg and telling me it is raining. The owner came over, called bullshit on his painter.  I think it will come off with a good scrub. We were easily removing it with our fingernails.  So, he is giving me a brown bear gift card, and said if it doesn't do the trick, he will fix it.  At least there is that. 

The latest on Jenny's CA 19-9 numbers.

Graph with trendline. CA 19-9 level seems out of control at this point.

So, my annoyance with Jenny lying, and its really mere annoyance at this point, is leavened by the sobering trend of the cancer marker.  The next scan is in two weeks.  I am holding out hope these numbers are anomalous.  

Entry 2    9:39 p.m.

I vacillate between a state of self-abnegation and torpor, denial and listlessness, all while wearing a 5 mg. Lidocaine patch on my back.  The patch works, and with it comes sweet relief.  The one thing Kaiser nailed yesterday, thankfully.  

Jenny is worried about how we are going to get packed.  I haven't asked for, and haven't received any sympathy from her.  I have learned from her that this injury comes at a perfect time.  Ok.  So it does.  She has invited a friend over tomorrow to help pack, someone I find incredibly loathsome. 

I can't believe Jenny discovered my plan. Hatched on May 28, I first decided to slip and fall in the bathtub that she hadn't rinsed out after she sat in it with Epsom salts.  Next, I intentionally healed after 2 weeks, then managed to buy a house a month later so we would have to pack.  I love it when a plan comes together. Then, the coup de grace, re-injure myself moving 50+ boxes, many filled with books,  all so I could forego doing anymore moving prep.  I am brilliant. Let me know if you need help planning a coup d'etat of your local VFW or your next Tupperware party. Or, perhaps you need pointers on how to best a used car dealer, tricking her into giving you undercoat road protection for free. Let me know.

I know she is sick. I know she is dying.  But, one iota of sympathy or empathy isn't an unreasonable expectation, unless I recall all I have been through with her. 

Today my therapist said she has never seen someone like me, who has given up everything to care for another.  She said its been a year, and while not surprised, did tell me I have been, in her eyes, extraordinary. That felt good.  All that walking I did was incredibly helpful last fall and winter. As is decanting or debriefing with friends. But writing down the day-to-day goings on has been the key. I say things here I don't otherwise utter and would  thus bottle up. I work out in my writing the madness of this existence. I look back, and see the emotional landscape we have traversed, and am grateful for having captured it.

Jenny is poised on the sectional, dour, bitter, and inconsolable. I refer to this as day 2 of palliative chemo.  This too shall pass.  

Back to journaling. I stopped reading her Caringbridge around the time she told me I couldn't write anymore entries.  I noticed I wasn't showing up there in the recount of her life, of the thanks she is offering for those who have helped out. I jokingly refer to this journal as the unexpurgated Caringbridge.  I love her, and want her to beat this or if she can't beat it, to suffer the least amount while fighting it.  But, and I mean this, I would leave tomorrow if she weren't ill. My therapist told me that having a heart problem after the last year, given my age, is hardly surprising.  True, but I wish I could have had just the one stress of infidelity. I would have lessened the stress, I could have walked away.