It Is Well With My Soul

 Entry 1     5:16 p.m.

Jenny weighs 148.1 lbs., she told me this morning. I took it well, in front of her. After a morning of excruciating pain, she went to fetch Leiney from Bellingham. 

Rocked from her rapid weight loss, I went to Safeway. Ostensibly there to get cream cheese for some concoction Abby is making, I instead engaged in retail therapy, buying holiday signifiers like a poinsettia, a pie for tomorrow, vodka for the lavender drinks I will make, cardamom bitters, Lifesaver books, and so on and so forth. I cried while shopping. That hasn't happened for a time, like ever.

Last night in tandem therapy Jenny expressed upset that I told her in last week's session that whether she stops seeing Eric or not is immaterial. I am not interested in rapprochement, in rebuilding. She is right, I did say that and have been saying it for 15 months. This is nothing new.  I didn't suddenly get angry or upset, instead I had an overwhelming sense of sadness at her surprise. I am watching her suffer and die. I can't stop the cancer from taking her. My wish that she would spontaneously enter into remission is as effective as using logic when arguing with an antivaxxer.

Every day is sorrowful. Jenny wakes in pain.  She gets sick. She despairs. She has terminal cancer. 

I offered to go with Jenny today. I had all sorts of things to do, but she was in pain, and I did have some concern about her driving up to Bellingham. She wanted me to stay and complete my tasks. I regret not going. It's just too much for her to do this alone now.  She did fine on the way up, but on the way home, she had to let Leiney drive. She felt terrible all of the sudden, and got double vision.  While Leiney was driving, Jenny began vomiting. Leiney met Chris around 85th and Aurora, then Chris took Jenny to hospital.

Jenny is fine.  She declined a C/T scan, she doesn't want to see if her tumors have grown, but did consent to an x-ray and IV fluids. They offered to admit her and she declined. In essence, they told her she is so ill, she can just come and check in to stay whenever she wants. She is back home and Thanksgiving is still on. I am happy.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Life, A Cascading Series of Disappointment

Image
Jenny has cancer.  Terminal cancer.  We learned that in late July. Jenny had  dropped 25 lbs. in the spring without trying.  She had been having vague stomach complaints since October.  As a balm for her concerns, her doctor agreed to do a CT scan for her, but told her they would find nothing.  Jenny wanted to rule out pancreatic cancer, which had recently killed her dad-in the spring of 2019.  Her mother had been sick with lymphoma since February 2020.  The day of the scan, the doctor told Jenny they would get results back in a few days. When Jenny's phone rang that same afternoon, I was in the living room with Abby, where I was torturing her by playing the Rapping Duke on Youtube. Jenny shouted from the room, "Geoff, get in here, the doctor's on the phone." "You have a four cm. mass on your pancreas,"  he said. Jenny made a sound like someone had punched her in the stomach.  "There is a spot on your liver. You have a necrotic lymph nod...
Read more

Still Muddling Through Somehow

Image
At the park, I walked my dog through the rain this morning— not really proper rain— more like air that has decided to shrug water at you out of habit. It suited my mood well enough. As I walked, my thoughts kept returning to the same small universe they often do. They are not new thoughts. They orbit the same losses. They consider the same betrayals, the same questions that never resolve. They have been captured, these thoughts, never to escape, never to be forgotten, never to burn up in the atmosphere. It is simply the gravitational field of my life now. What might seem or feel like self-pity is more like muscle memory, which tells me I need more exercise. The holidays are here, and Christmas has always been central to my life, atheist that I am. It was stitched into Jenny’s life — the love of Christmas — at least as strongly as it was stitched into mine. We carried that love forward with the kids, year after year, without ever needing to talk about why it mattered; it just did. I...
Read more

Don't Do It, Don't Do It, Oh, Lord

Image
It Hurts, It Hurts So Bad.  .  . 3:44 a.m. I walked in the door last night at just before 10 to find Jenny in a ball on the floor--between the giant ottoman and sectional--agonizing pain in her hip. I had ridden to acting with the student driver.  But, let's back up. Jenny had chemo yesterday.  Her friend Jennifer took her.  It was uneventful and she received chemo.  I, as always, prepared the house for her arrival to make sure she wanted for nothing and would be comfortable as she endures the aftermath of all that poison.  Sometime before she came home, she texted, saying the doctor suggested she try Aleve for her hip pain.  Aleve.   She asked me to pick some up for her while Abby was at acting.   During the text exchange I realized she would be alone after Abby and I left for acting.  Leiney was elsewhere and had therapy at 5 and kickboxing later, and her sister Moni had bailed on chemo because she had so much to do (Wit...
Read more