Picture Day Tomorrow

 Entry 1     9:00 a.m.

Tomorrow is the eight-week scan. It starts very early.  I don't know where the fuck I am going to park. I have to go to a parking garage with my jeep, that still has the roof box on it. Maybe I will get it off tonight, I hope. Jenny, who can do it sans ladder, can't help anymore. I think she never thought she'd be this sick--who can blame her refusal to admit it early in the journey. Now, last night she talked about needing to finish her "funeral stuff" a marked shift.  

Can we go back to the bad old days of her not being sick, and us barely interacting? Me not knowing she is cheating, but suspecting something was off-kilter? Of Leiney and I hanging out, talking politics with Abby baking in the tiny kitchen? 

I don't want to deal with anything outside my tiny bubble. It gets smaller all the time. John Travolta's got nothing on me. Work is so busy, Jenny so sick, the house such a time suck, that I am working here in less than splendid isolation.

It's 9:30 a.m. Jenny is still sleeping. She was out after 10 last night at a social event. She can't take it, physically but also cannot miss any opportunity. Last night's soiree clearly sapped her. 

I watched my mother die. It was a slow and excruciating process for her, her family and friends. I was with her for 30 days. I barely left her side. And as the person I knew and loved disappeared into the husk of the person I used to know, I still recognized her face, and even the words that came out of her mouth, but not the essence of the person I loved.  I am so afraid that will happen here. 

I am reading the Caringbridge of my old girlfriend. If we live long enough, we all will get cancer, or so I have read. It doesn't matter what a good life you have led, how righteous you may be (or how shitty, for that matter), when you are well-fucked by the fickle finger of fate, you are well-fucked. I hate to see the shock, fear, apprehensiveness, and terror that arises during this ride. I hate to see good people suffer.

Entry 2    1:05 p.m.

Work is jamming today. It is becoming evident that Jenny is avoiding the stairs at all costs. Telling. She isn't getting up much to fetch things really. On the ECOG score, I'd say she is a 2/3.  

The Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group measurement of cancer patient functionality is widely used, and Dr. P. notes Jenny's status in her chart each visit.  Jenny is ambulatory, but she is on the coach (Freudian slip a friend caught) couch more than 50% of the time. If she goes somewhere, she is sitting.  Last night, the people hosting the soiree wanted to give a tour of the building, but Jenny couldn't.  I make all her food, bring her all her drinks. She dresses, bathes, and uses the bathroom independently. But she is mostly on the couch binge-watching, as she is right now.  There is actually an ECOG 5--death--which seems rather unnecessary.

Today, as our friend and dog walker was leaving our home, Jenny was heading out the door to the dentist.  A friend was supposed to take her, but was late, so Jenny was driving.  Jenny told our dog walker friend that she can barely walk to the car and back. I suggested she cancel and reschedule the meeting.  She refused, saying a cancellation 20 minutes before is not ok.  I went back to my office to a meeting. What else was there to do?