That's Just The Way It Is, Some Things Will Never Change

 

Entry 1 5:41 a.m.
I am sleepy, but awake since 5. Sigh. I have lost something, a part of me, over these last few months.  I am listless, no pleasure in much of anything at all, really. Apart from an occassional frolic in the yard with Buddy and Willow, I sit alone, or with Jenny. I hate this cancer. I hate this life. I have no passion about anything, no desire. I can't exercise without excruciating pain. In general, malaise has set in and I feel stuck, frozen like a piece of fruit cocktail in jello.
Wait, there is one thing that I have been doing, tearing apart the report. It offers no succor. It is finding after finding of black clouds on the horizon. We've been weathering this for so long now, a newer and more bleak forecast shouldn't rattle my windows, but it does.
I stood bleary-eyed over the commode after waking up at 3:45 a.m., and my mind took me to Abby, Leiney, and my switching of health plans. As I write this, I believe they are covered by both of our health plans. This means, or would mean if I am correct, there should be no issue of changing health coverage when this cancer runs it's course. It shows how little I actually pay attention to medical bill payment.

We need to return to, vet and revise our planning list, to make sure nothing is missed.

Believe It

Tandem therapy.  I am spiraling into depression, fighting it, but circling. I don't raise the issue. I don't feel its germane to the topic, whatever it may be.  At some point Jenny was telling me she worries that I am doing so much for her I may become resentful. I'm not.  I tell her so, and ask if I appear resentful.  She says I do not. I tell her that I am caring for her to make sure she is able to live her life to the fullest without suffering, and then tell her that more than that, I am caring for her because I love her and because it is fulfilling for me.  I then explained the only thing I am resentful about is that she loves someone else. 

A few minutes go by.  Jenny is talking about her gratitude for all the things her friends, family and I are done for her. She begins crying, telling me she is sorry for everything she has put me through.  I ask, what do you mean, everything I have put you through, and she says, "I am sorry for getting sick."  

I let the words float around in my head, feeling a lot like a Slurpee brain freeze.  It hurt to hear or not hear the words, the omission clearly intentional, the one sentence pregnant with meaning. Not just a little pregnant, past due pregnant. 11 months pregnant. With triplets. Can it be that I am still in disbelief a year and change later?

This is cruelty, whether intentional or not doesn't really matter. This is the bottom line. How does one square this with someone so kind to others, so beloved to others is an inquiry I have endeavored to discuss before, but not tonight.  Rather, tonight I ponder what in her mind tells her that this is okay, that I deserve this? For surely, she justifies it. I have let it lie for so long. But now, I really want to understand why its okay, in her estimation.  

I am also certain, even now, that if tomorrow a cure was found I would flee, on less than fleet feet, but flee I would.
Entry 3  10:58 p.m.

Denial As A Genetically Encoded Reaction To Trauma or Not Now John, I've Gotta Get On With These

The human mind is a rat trap, a Rube Goldberg Machine, a squirting flower in a clown's lapel. I see denial every day in both Jenny and me.  She and I both vacillate between
she is going to die, she isn't going to die. Obviously, given the cards dealt, believing she will beat this disease is denial, crossing the line to delusional. Me believing Jenny will have remorse for this affair, also denial past the point of delusion. Denying death is something we all do. I suppose I have heard that believing that one isn't going to die or not thinking of death is a survival mechanism because supposedly humans can't function of they don't live in such denial. Or so I have heard.  But, if that is true, why do I always hear people with terminal illnesses often will reach a point of acceptance, that they can embrace it, "sit with it," come to terms with it.  They don't suddenly die when they reach this sanguine state. So, I call bullshit. 

I am in denial when I do things and think she will change just because I do them. My therapist suggests this is a learned behavior from my childhood interactions with my mother. Whatever the cause, every time I think I have conquered it, I snap back.  And then I have to roll the rock up the hill again.

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