kvetching up

Arosa, 🇨🇭 Switzerland, 2018.   How do you square claiming to follow moral and ethical behavior with supporting a friend who is cheating? How was it Jenny's friends held her blameless and legitimately expected me to suck it up and accept her rejection of the kids and betrayal of our relationship ? I read their texts and emails with Jenny and was always baffled by this. One of these ppl was a school counselor, another two had  MSWs. I say this often, but Sara, Paul, Lisa, Cheryl, Ethan, Laurie, Ashley, and others kept me sane, were rationality defined. Had I only been reading the nonsense of Jenny's friends, I would have been lost to the madness.  They would tell each other that I was unreasonable, that I needed to get over it, that I needed to grow up and accept the behavior. They believed my refusal to do so was abusive. Part of this was, of course Jenny's seemed version of reality--i.e., she lied to them as easily as she exhaled, but it was also this conc...

I became a sucker for Robert Smith when Kiss Me! Kiss Me! Kiss Me! was released in 1987. I was 20, and 6 albums behind. I got the deep catalog around 1999, when Napster, coincidentally, was in existence.  I'm sitting alone in this big house listening to angsty 80s English pop. Leiney has headed back to Bellingham, or is after she finishes work. Abby is at a concert at The Vera Project.  Jenny is heading home from dinner at Ivars with her NY friends. Last night I learned the woman married to the hedge fund guy just bought Don Imus' apartment on 67th for 10 million bucks and an apartment on the main floor for their kids to hang out. 10 million apparently is a steal, and they have to do massive remodeling. Money 💰 🤑.  Must be nice. I spent the afternoon hacking at blackberry bushes.  I hired a guy who finally came last week, but he did a shit job.  So, I am continuing the work.  The bushes I hacked at today are about 12 feet tall.  I want a buffer from...

"What The Actual Fuck?" Entry 1     10:06 a.m. I reached out to the care team over the weekend via email, given Jenny's current state of pain.  I want to stress, before I describe the latest event, that this suffering is happening to all of us, not just Jenny.  She is experiencing horrible pain and lethargy.  The kids and I are dealing with our inability to help, standing by helplessly watching as she doubles over in pain, crawls on all fours, begs for death.  Her lethargy makes it hard to plan anything. So, at 10 AM, the nurse from the palliative care team calls in response to my e-mail.  They would like to see Jenny, they tell me.  I go to Jenny, who is just out of the shower and toweling off, and tell her they would like to see her at 12:30 or 1:30.  She, annoyed with me says, "I didn't know they were calling. " I remind her of the email I sent, and that she read.  She told me she has scrabble with friends today and can't go....

A Heart That's Full Up Like A Landfill Chemo bye-week.  Its quiet.  I am laying on the McCrosky mattress while Jenny is in the living room watching the Friends Reunion.   If I'm honest, things are strange here.  Not bad strange, just strange. Maybe we are just a microcosm of our times.    Snippets of the actor's voices waft into this room from the tv Jenny is watching.  Mixed with this are sounds of Abby's show that is playing  in the kitchen, turned up loud enough to be heard  over the whirr of the Kitchen-Aid , and the dog's nails clicking down the hardwoods  as he leaves the room, each step  sounding like a slim branch hitting a window as it sways in the wind. Alexander cutting the Gordian knot As I lay here collecting my thoughts, Jenny texts, asking if I think she should take more pain meds. Her pain is rising again.  I tell her I do think so if she is in pain, and suggest she discuss it with the palliative care docto...

Flying Too Close To the Sun Entry 2 12:27 PM Last night's therapy was insane. I won't go over the details here, with one exception. I have written it all before.  However, Jenny did insist she isn't having an affair. She defines that to mean she can't spend the night or fuck him, to be clear.  But she never says that. The Fall of Icarus by Peter Paul Reubens Today is an unusually busy day.  As I finished a meeting just before 12, I could hear Jenny on the phone, apparently talking to her sister, Moni. She said, I am probably talking too loudly, which peaked my curiosity, so I walked to the bottom of the basement stairs where I am working, to hear more clearly, because I have become a creeper for information, given lies are the currency of the realm. She, Jenny, was telling Moni that last night  Eric  the pinché motherfucker's wife told him she wanted a divorce.  So this tells me two things.  One, she is a lying liar, not a newsflash.  Two, that he...

I'm coming to the edge of the widest canyon My companion's dear I'm starting to question my manifest destiny My claim to this frontier I'm coming to the brink of a great disaster End just has to be near The earth spins faster, whistles right past you Whispers death in your ear Don't pretend you can't hear Don't pretend you can't hear -from Manifest by Andrew Bird The morning brings with it another day of excruciating and unremitting pain for Jenny.  The pain meds take forever to work, if they work at all. The pain, a phantom that moves around her lower extremities, is likely from her tumor. Referred pain, pain caused in one part of the body that shows up elsewhere, isn't uncommon.  She is so miserable, I just want to solve this, so she can be comfortable. Jenny has commonly, like today, awakened from pain in the dark hours,  and gone to the kitchen seeking pain relief.  This early morning that didn't work, so she arose again in the light, just a...

Kim is here for 12 days, visiting from Quakertown.  She is sleeping in what used to be my spot in the bed, long ago ceded to the invisible presence of el pinché motherfucker. Kim is the loveliest of humans. 12 days though?  I slept in the big red chair downstairs in the unheated basement rather than sleep on the living toom sectional couch, trying to maintain a modicum of privacy. Glad we got rid of the sleeper couch, I finally understand the urgency of getting rid of a couch in a room with a door. Or not. In preparation for the guest's arrival, Jenny and I cleaned and organized the bedroom closet.  We managed to fill a black lawn and leaf bag with clothes to give away. As I was winnowing my t-shirt collection, I came across the EJI t-shirt Jenny gave me as a gift after returning from Alabama in 2019.  She went with her friend "Ike" a 70-something teacher at TOPS and Eric  the pinche motherfucker. Ike wanted to see and show them the seminal sites of the civil ri...

Everybody knows that you love me baby Everybody knows that you really do Everybody knows that you've been faithful Oh, give or take a night or two Everybody knows you've been discreet But there were so many people you just h ad to meet Without your clothes Everybody knows -Leonard Cohen I am being consumed by this, swallowed whole.  I live this life, stuck and not wanting to get unstuck, because I know the only way that happens is when her cancer runs its course.  I think about two things every day, all the time, pancreatic cancer, and the betrayal.  I am convinced my vertigo is a direct result of the constant stress I have been under these last several months.  I don't feel strong enough to do this. But I don't have an alternative.   Jenny is upstairs on the phone with Big Sisters, laughing hysterically.  Earlier tonight a teacher friend dropped by and they had a good old time.  Jenny, not suffering from the chemo, is in high spirits.  Meanw...

Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV). Also known as fuck my life.  Why do I get all the weird disorders?  Some years ago I had scleritis in my eye.  If I recall correctly, my left eye.  It looked like a popped blood vessel covering half of the white of my eye.  It was benign, thankfully.  If not, it could have signaled a much worse disease and a shortening of my life.  It causes great pain that can't be reached by the use of opiates or other pain relievers, which was fun.  As it was, I wore an eye patch for months until it cleared up.  It also was benign, like the BPPV.   I had tests this morning, again, at Kaiser.  They finally nailed down the issue when they moved my head rapidly while laying me down, and checking to see if there was involuntary movement of, yep, my eyes. There was.  I'm not pleased.  The only treatment, except in the most extreme cases, is this weird head and body exercise I am supposed to d...

Terrified of the Road Ahead   Venus and Mars surprised by Vulcan Currently, I am sitting in the parking lot at YTN, reading medical journals on PDAC. I am curious what the journals suggest an elevated CA-19-9 level (the cancer marker) might mean. Jenny's is stable at 2349 (normal reading is >37). Hers was under 1000 at diagnosis, and crashed as low as the 300s in initial treatment, before beginning its ascent in late October.  It more than doubled from 331.2 in early October to 792.4 at the next session. It dropped below 1000 a couple times since then, but the trend isn't encouraging.  Amongst the literature I perused, I found  this, "Rising CA 19-9 values mean the tumor is growing." That statement is too strong.  Other things can cause the number to go up, an obstructed biliary duct, for instance. The worry for me is of all the examples listed as reasons CA19-9 may be elevated, none were things Jenny has. I'm not a medical doctor, so I don't know what t...

Sacrifice Sacrifice .  Self-sacrifice to be more specific.  Its a mystery to me how one can be so oblivious.  This evening we had our regularly scheduled Tuesday tandem therapy. It was fascinating, start to finish.  The therapist, Shayla, asked how we were doing.  I was stewing, had been all day, because I was and am convinced Jenny has been seeing  Eric  the pinché motherfucker on the down low.     Jenny answered Shayla first, and said she thought things had been going pretty well, actually. I was hesitant to speak my mind.  In fact, I had been kicking around all day whether or not to remain silent, but my big mouth got the better of me.  I went on a soliloquy, not a jeremiad.  I said that I was unhappy, that I had believed that by telling  Eric  the pinché motherfucker's wife, Jenny would see the light, that something would change.  I noted that I realized now how ridiculous this idea was--magical thi...

Jenny apparently thinks I have treated Sheila and Jennifer Murray poorly.  At least that is what she said to Sheila. Sheila doesn't give a shit, and concurs with Jenny.  This is unbelievable. Jenny said she was surprised that I care so much.  What the hell? I feel every visit to Jennifer Murray's, every text to Sheila or Jennifer or Eric   the pinche motherfucker is a betrayal. Today I saw his portrait on an electrical box.  I have a fantasy of creating a bumper sticker that says this man is cheating on his wife and putting it on the box, on the front bumper of his car. I hate that she is still seeing him and will not stop.  Its so painful. I hate that she is sick, dying in fact, and want her to be happy.  But how do I live with this?  I love her.  I want to care for her, and want her to care for me. She only complains about me. I saw a text complaining that I said I was going to, on occasion, be in the living room to work. I have a roll...

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...