Bravery In Action

 Entry 1.  8:59 a.m.

My shit sleeping habits have returned and coupled with my early rising. So, asleep at 2, up at 530.  Dogs didn't wake for another hour. I spent the gift of time planning the day. It's the day our housecleaner comes and he was arriving at 8:00 a.m., an hour early.  So, the plan was already made for me.I I had to go clean. I find it humorous that when you have a house cleaner you have to clean the house in advance.  We are a much neater family with Leiney in Bellingham and Abby is down in her lair.  

Thanksgiving, Stanwood 2017.

Imagine knowing you are living on borrowed time. When I say borrowed time, I don't mean the kind most of us have. We all know we will die some day, maybe even today. But the way most of us deal with it is to live in denial, to put it out of our minds. Contrast that with living with a terminal illness, one which you know should have killed you a year ago. Every morning, you awakened by horrible abdominal pain. The first thing that enters your mind is you are dying from cancer.  All day long you are in great discomfort, have little energy, and no appetite. You know you have to eat to live. However, everything that you eat goes through you. You are so thin, you make Flat Stanley look obese. You are eating oxycodone like candy but the pain and discomfort are implacable. The chemo drugs you take cause indescribable neuropathy. When you touch something cold, like a steering wheel, or are outside for too long in what you used to think was mild weather, you feel like shards of glass are being driven into your skin.

All that to say, as I was cleaning up this morning, I went upstairs to discover Jenny a puddle on the shower floor, inconsolable. I got her moving, as she has a full dance card today. I have so much sympathy for her, watching this slow-motion disaster. For all of the frustrations of the last year, the broken marriage and the litany of things that go along with that, love transcends everything. I am humbled by the fortitude she shows through the suffering, the persistence despite the agony. She is brave.

Today, I am finally going to Total Wine. No more postponement.

Entry 2 6:15 p.m.

A milestone of sorts. Jenny and I went to the sprawling Buried Fred Meyer and she used an electric cart for the first time. She hesitated initially, but we never could have shopped without it. She put on her game face and drove that cart through the store despite the teeming masses yearning to buy one get one free. Being reduced to using the cart is yet another road marker of the course of disease. She said to me that she thinks every day that she can't believe she may not be here in a year, and then thinks she can believe it. I ache.

Her pain and discomfort have reached crescendo to such an extent she is actively seeking out a Celiac nerve block. The procedure employs a very big needle to inject alcohol into the Celiac nerve bundle, temporarily deadening the pain. It's effects last no more than 6 months. She has a teleappointment on Monday.at 9:00 a.m. sharp to discuss.