So, let's fill in. The day after Wash celebrated living 500 days with GBM we heard that one of the people locally we know who also had GBM had passed away. He had made it about 600 days. That has certainly tempered things this week. Wash is also getting ready to do some personal work with a grief counselor coming up so he was very reactive this week as well.
It casts everything into such a harsh light. No matter how much I can celebrate, how much both of us can try to forget, it is in fact inevitable that his cancer will come back (and most likely kill him if he does not go for some reason before). It's running from the monster inside your cells. Impossible.
My dreams lately have been reflecting this as well; Wash is always dying in them or still has cancer, an recently I've even been having dreams of asthma attacks, which I wake up to a real one! My stresses are high this month; the government decided to take out Wash's MediCare payment but not actually pay his disability for this month. Things have to be juggled and balanced and begged on. Thankfully so far at least all his prescriptions have been coming back with no issues so far. Small break.
I have been thinking a lot this week. There was a point when I just filled too much with the horrid "what if's"... the one's where life is a bit more fair and happy things came to us. Such magic. Life I am learning, is quite unfair and cold-in that way there does seem to be an almost balance of the oppressed to those in power.
The fish are breeding. Basically caught us by surprise, but we have a baby tank now with a few little fry and there are plenty in the big tank either hiding or being eaten by the adult fish. I am amazed by being able to watch the eggs develop and then the fry hatch and finally begin to swim... I do hope that perhaps one or four will make it to an adult stage. It is a harsh reminder for me to watch though. I may and can attempt to intervene but really it is not down to me if the babies survive. A lot of it will just be... luck?
I can try to hope hard we still have some luck left. I am not ready yet to face what is to come. I'm not ready for his decline. I'm not ready to care for the love of my life who cannot remember who I am. I'm not ready to say good-bye. I don't want it now, I don't want it in 10 years, but I know that it will come sooner than that and far far sooner than I could ever be ready for. I still don't know yet how we get there. How we get to the place where we can say good-bye. How can I say that when I still want another 50 years to say 'Hi' and everything else to him? I don't want to be a widow before I'm 30. I can hope I won't be.
Life and death it is all around. Like the cancer, it is inescapable.
I have tried a different tactic this week though; when things got very painful I tried reaching out, tried to communicate some of it instead of keeping it in. I let my bad day just exist instead of trying to deny or hide it and it did seem to pass perhaps a little faster than before.
I am still tired, always, but perhaps a little more confident in the goodness and kindness of friends and the universe to be there for help.
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Tashi, this was such a good post----I always admire your honesty and candor, and also how you don't try to "sugar coat" the way things *are*.
ReplyDeleteWhen you said, "I let my bad day just exist, instead of trying to deny or hide it," that seems to be a very wise approach, along with also reaching out and trying to communicate some of it.
Often it takes emotional/physical strength----(that you simply don't have, at all, because it's *just all gone*!!)----to even reach out and/or communicate; but if you can somehow/someway just "WILL" yourself to do so ............ it REALLY DOES HELP with some of, (but not with all of), those bad, painful days, you know.
I'm not sure if I will ever be old enough NOT TO BE IN AWE of those----(like you and Wash; or like Mary Osheskie in Jo's blog of 6/18/11)----who have hope, when hope genuinely seems IMPOSSIBLE ............ or who can continue to love, when loving genuinely seems IMPOSSIBLE ............ or who can genuinely empathize with the trials/tribulations/sorrows of "select others," when a same (or even faintly similar!!) RESPONSE FROM "select others" would, frankly, be an IMPOSSIBLE response from them.
Maybe it's living ---- those IMPOSSIBLE days ---- with those IMPOSSIBLE trials/tribulations/sorrows ---- that you & Wash, (and, very sadly, many others, too) ............ *are* doing; and you're doing the best that you can do, too. Living those Impossible Days ............ as well as ANYONE ELSE (who would be in your exact, same shoes) could do, that's for sure.
**ADDENDUM**:
ReplyDeleteI meant to say, "or like Mary Osheskie in Jo's blog of 7/18/11," (instead of 6/18/11)!!