The next 50 years

I have this head cold, see.  It's unusual, I've never had one like this, but like all head colds it's extremely annoying!  I'll feel on the verge of a sneeze, complete with facial twitches and watering eyes.  No matter how often I blow my nose or hold my sinus closed by pressing on the bridge of my nose, it wouldn't go away! I've been powering on the garlic, the coldfx, the assorted vitamins, etc., but got ill nonetheless!  Last week it was my back. I had cramps from my shoulders to my forehead, the kind of headache, neck ache, and back ache, that I got the time I had meningitis for 24 hours, about 16 years ago.  I suffered that experience alone, there was nobody to say 'hey, lets get you to ER" so I didn't go till I was feeling a lot better. At that point, there was nothing to see and I was dismissed by the doctor. I was at a walk-in clinic, not ER.  But I remember how that pain felt and this week, especially when it deepened to include my lower ba...

I have a potluck party tomorrow, and I intend to attend.  Not sure what I'll bring for alcohol, but I have a pack of mixed nuts thingy, and I'm going to dip marzipan balls in chocolate, and assemble sliced smoked turkey, sliced spiced gouda, and stuffed olives on toothpicks.  I'll put them on a platter with some fancy crackers.  That ought to suffice for my contribution, eh? I'm worried about my health.  Twice now they've cancelled chemo because my neutrophils were low and this week they're lower than last, not higher!  I'm having nasty back aches, headaches, neck aches, and have a swollen gland in my neck.  My chronic toothache got a bit scary on the weekend but I managed to stop clenching my teeth the last two nights so that's better. It has a direct connection to clenching, so I figure the problem is uneven pressure due to the missing tooth below it.  It can get bad enough to actually put a blister of pus in the roof of my mouth, a sinus that drain...

It's driving me batty!  I've been the best friend I know how to be and still I'm accused of judgmental and insulting behaviour!!! I remember when it started.  I used the word stupid to reference an idea in a post my friend shared and next thing you know I'm saying that person is stupid and nothing I can say or do to defend myself is valid. It's infuriating! I could apologize, as I've done repeatedly in the past with this person, but at some point they've got to learn to quit raking me over the coals for their own head trips! It's cruel to me!  Nearest I can figure, I represent the better parts of the person who abused my friend, and so my friend projects the nasty parts of that other onto me as well! Then like Don Quixote goes at me, tilting full gallop with lowered lance screaming anger at me for some perceived slight I never made. I've got this abusive husband poking and provoking me when I seem at peace or happy.  Then there's the friend who...

I have managed two vlogs in a row, two days in a row!  That's cool.  I've missed the first four days of DE in which two were weekends and I won't post if Dan's home because he just doesn't give me the space to yap to a camera.  It's hard enough to get six seconds for a vine (well vine's dead now but for nearly 3 years I did it a lot).  yeah, he's so damn oblivious to me that way.  Doesn't frankly care.  What's in his head feels more important so it therefor is.  So far the side effects of the chemo are pretty manageable. The cold intolerance is quite annoying and needs some workarounds but it fades off in week two when I'm on a chemo break and I'm hoping that doesn't change.  the weather has taken a turn for the cold so I'm not getting much car driving time in. I might try anyway today just because my trip is as much across town as it's possible to go.  I've got a second pilates class today. I can hardly remember the exerc...

Ugh, this week I'm getting all the side effects.  Nausea last night had me wondering if I'd be able to even take the anti-nausea pills in the morning.  Every time I got enough bile and saliva in there, up it came again for about 3 hours. I'm blaming the turkey sausages I ate as these are full of assorted additives for flavour and whatever, and very greasy too.  So today I'm sticking with clean simple foods and green tea for my caffiene.  I woke up able to swallow the pills although it got a bit dicey for the first twenty minutes after.  The anti-nausea pill making me nauseous.  Yep. I am feeling really tired today too and my stoma has stopped outputting entirely.  Don't get me wrong, I love not changing the bag, but it gets to where random stinging pains go on in my belly as the hard lumps jostle around unpassed.  That's because I had to quit drinking water by evening yesterday and couldn't take my assorted pills like for laxatives and stuff. ...

I realize posting the idea here means someone might take it, but hey, whomever uses it still has to write the story, right? And two can right from one premise and get two completely different stories.  So while I'd like to be the one that does something with it, I'll risk it's theft.  Besides, getting a book published and selling, it seems to me, more than ever before, is about the same as becoming a pop star, lottery winner, or political leader of a wealthy nation! Okay so here I go thinking. There's the kuiper belt and the Oort cloud out there.  Each is a torus around the sun of gasses, ices, minerals, dirt, and even organic matter.  Yes, yes it is, I kid you not.  Comets, you see, contain organic molecules, ice, (including water ice) and assorted rocks. They are prolific in these two belts, and some, perhaps by some previous impact of something slightly less tuned than the rest, come flying in at weird angles to the rest of the solar system.  Hence why...

I haven't had chemo symptoms to any great degree. When I do, they're a surprise, because of the lack of symptoms, and the fact I'm not currently taking any chemo.  I guess the stuff has effects for days after, but I never read about it or got told, so I don't know that much (yet) about how that works.  Plus which, the flourouracil got cut off half way. Again, seems to me I shouldn't worry about symptoms till the next round?  Not so sure that's correct, though.  I've been doing some research on it. See, I want my weight to be 120-125lbs unless and until I can see that I'm under 15% body fat.  I measure it roughly since I can only pinch an inch here and there, guesstimate the thickness, and put it into a calculator online.  But I did gain fat weight, so I set my fitbit on a losing plan.  The last three days it's been easier to follow once I got the hang of how much to put out each meal.  I'd been used to eating more than I should.  If I was pr...

That fucking business.  I never wanted to be CEO of a fucking corporation and I still am long after resigning.  I still don't understand how in fuck I'm 100% share holder. Now they want crap from the bank from three years ago and I don't even know how to ask for it.  They want me signing more paper as though I'm actually still some fucking CEO and I'm ready to go back to the accountant, pick up the paper, add it to all the other papers we have around the house and burn the whole motherfucking thing in the backyard pit. I'm so over this crap. I don't know what to do.  More paper.  More standing in lines asking for things I don't know how to ask for. They're going to say "what is the account number for that?"  How in hell should I know?  Who do you people think I am?  I'm a fucking housewife, housepainter retired, and maybe an artist if you count utter losers as artists.  So done with this crap but this crap won't let me go.  I'm...

I do wait too long, but it's the longest stretch I've kept it up at all, LOL.  My diaries/logs/journals and blogs in the past all died before a year was out and then went a year or more between entries.  sometimes a spasm of several weeks might be found in the oldest paper diary, every few years.  Most of it was just childish stuff of the usual sort it seems. Maybe I'm old enough to read it again and see. Our desire to read or watch our younger selves comes from a desire to understand ourselves better, right?  Would you agree we're always seeking clarity on how we became who we are right now? So we do retrospective looking.  Using whatever records we made in our lives. I propose this basic desire exists at the universal level. That Deity we all sense, which I like to call Life.  I like to say it's the consciousness of the aggregated existence of all things living.  Well, it's pretty big and has a pretty long life.  Big bang to final whimper, it'...

So much emotion of late.  Emotions about recent hardships, emotions about childhood experiences.  I realize now it's what PTSD describes, the triggering of extreme emotions by apparently mundane events.  Like picking up the crap behind the freezer after months of nobody doing it.  Finally I'm strong enough to do it myself, and there's a box from pico salax treatments to get me ready for the colonoscopy.  I was at my most miserable then.  Sick nearly to death and hanging on by the meniscus on the coconut water.  I saw it and started weeping about what I went through. Or I hear about some school thing or childhood thing and am brought back to an event from childhood.  Today I was remembering the principal who accused me of crocodile tears.  There I was, helpless in a brain storm, weeping, stupid, terrified, overwhelmed, and this guy would repeatedly inform me that I was psychotic and unable to perceive my own motivations.  From my POV, I m...

I was watching the tv.  I'd tuned into the news while using the bathroom, and as usual all I got was the commercial break.  Said break included an ad for a senior's residence.  I thought to myself, if I had to live there instead of getting in a bus and driving around, just sit in an apartment in Saskatoon, then what?  I don't have sex.  I can't enjoy a good shit in the morning.  I don't have family.  Friends?  Well there's a bunch of people who'd call themselves my friends but they wouldn't be around then any more than they are now.  Facebook can't replace a good game of canasta, you know?  I can't even use food or booze to get pleasure.  1200 calories a day just isn't enough to eat more than it takes to get my vitamins and fiber and protein!  I don't have grandkids coming around or any of the traditional things that keep elders going.  I just get so depressed at the idea of being stuck like this.  I shared my feeling...

I'm so ready to be able to sit straight, but my butt ain't.  The effort to sit up instead of laying down, so I can type, eat, and so forth, keeps pulling at my stitches, the vulnerable ones on my butt.  I wonder, if I duct tape across my butt crack to force the buttocks together, would the stitches heal faster?  Hmmm, LOL, interesting idea.  Not duct tape, of course, that's harsh stuff, but skin tape?  I could include absorbent bandages over the graft.  Interesting.  I might actually try that.  At the moment I'm in a position that's working but it involves  a lot of bending of legs and they'll eventually complain pretty hard about the restricted circulation.  I was sitting on my heels for about an hour but that got painful. I want so badly to talk about my forging. When a japanese sword making master creates a Katana, he doesn't just flatten out a superb chunk of iron then put an edge on it, the way western blades are made.  No, h...

I'm so fed up with that POS bluetooth keyboard.  It misses the space bar, I hit the enter key all the time when I don't mean to (sending immediately my unfinished post) and it dances around on my lap like a puppy who doesn't want to be brushed.  ARGGHHHHH!  But sitting here, on my heels at the desk using this delightful corsair keyboard is not doing my stitches any good. I got infected.  I think from the drain tube coming out of my stomach, from when I took a shower.  I may not get clean enough but till all the holes in my body close I will not shower again!  I'm on antibiotics and finally today they're working.  I've been in a ton of pain and so tired.  I  can't believe I'm scheduled for stitch removal next week.  It seems too soon. They're still bleeding like menstruation!  I can even smell the blood sometimes.  I can't lay down 24/7 because I have to sit up to consume food and drink, or knit or fool on the pc, but no matter...

I have been waiting until I can sit at my desk to write.  The stuff to say about keeps mounting and before you know it, almost none of it makes the cut.  I'm so sorry to be so silent so long.  Now, a rough scrape up of the mere events of the summer, when a more in depth moment-by-moment telling would be much richer.  So much I can't tell you without diving in, and even as I type, I realize I'm still not up to this long typing. I've been on the couch a long time.  The chemo shrank the tumour 80% and last friday, surgery was undertaken, successfully.  The mechanics aren't important, but I no longer have an anus or rectum. No but, seriously, they rebuilt my pelvic floor using a graft off my abdomen!!  During all this, a spiritual surgery was happening too. I came out of the hospital with more than changes to belly and butt.  My character too was forged or honed or something. I feel like a different person.  It's about that I wish I could spea...

Where have you been my darling one? Where have you been my hazel-eyed son? I've been to the place where men walk on water.  I've been to the land where the land cowers down.  I've been across mountains that stab at the sky.  And I've seen rolling waves that rose up so high. It's been a life full of lows but so high. And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, oh so hard, it's a hard rain that's gonna fall. And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, oh so hard, it's a hard rain that's gonna fall. What have you seen my darling one? What have you seen my hazel-eyed son? I've seen snowy glaciers in moonlight at midnight.  I've seen deepest forest with moss to your knees.  I've seen water forever with no land in sight. I've seen dirty cities with nothing but blight. And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, oh so hard, it's a hard rain that's gonna fall. And it's a hard, it'...

I get chilly, but without warning, a burn steals over me from my core, and I flush out in sweat, and it takes too long too cool down.  I get soaked.  It's very random.  It sometimes comes along with the ache from my tumour, but mostly it's just completely unpredictable.  I've tried googling but there's no explanation out there for it.  I guess tumours can do that?  It's an endocrine type tumour I read, that colorectal and some others can flood you with hormones, and mess up your system. I'm also having a lot more pain.  The damn thing aches if I try and do anything related to walking or standing, and even sitting, I need to be utterly relaxed, chill, zen, like nearly asleep.  That can be hard because my belly is constantly fighting and freaking out, constipated, gas, pain and movement.  I still get extremely disgusted by the bag of shit on my stomach.  I can't fathom ever taking it as normal even now. Dan's back into a nice mode. ...

Lost all those appointments because I deleted them from the calendar. They were intimidating me too much.  now I'm stuck.  can't make myself call the doc to see him again.  Can't stand the idea of talking to multiple strangers on the phone, none of whom has any reason to give a fuck about me.  If I fail to go through with treatment, the cancer pain will come back as bad as ever,worse, and it'll hurt for months before I finally die of  it.  But I am at a wall.  I just can't make myself do anything.  Can't even eat anymore.  Just cry and cry and cry. Shake and sob, scared and hopeless.  Nobody to help me because all that reaching out didn't do me any good at all. Dan's getting chores done but other than that, it could be last year.  Same fucking scene.  Me alone at home depressed and sick.  Garden overgrown (technically Tom's looking after it but he's not up to the job).  All that reaching out, what was that for? Short...

Monday night I swallowed all the tablets of dilaudid I had.  The bottle was 2/3 full or so, more than half anyway.  I didn't even fall asleep.  By sunrise I came back in from the van and gave up. I threw up a lot of orange water then went to bed. I kind of drowsed till full morning, then threw up repeatedly, again, although nothing came up. I stayed dizzy and headachey all day.  I had itches all day.  I had dry mouth all day.  My digestion went haywire and my stoma shrank back inside and giant boulders tried to pass, making me sick again this morning and I spent the afternoon at the ostomy clinic getting some education and advice. Some of the advice regarded getting rid of Dan by finding income.  It sounded so reasonable in the office, but now, trying to figure out how to implement the ideas it seems impossible, overwhelming, confusing, and highly unlikely.  I can still drive a car, send payment to utilities, wipe my own ass, count out money for ...

I'm feeling incredibly disheartened.  I just don't have faith that there's a future for me and I'm thinking to just quit caring for myself again.  If I just don't eat properly or enough for the next couple weeks I might not pass the pre-surgery exam and get put off.  I don't want to go.  I don't believe saving my life is worth all the pain and effort and cost.  I don't want to continue living my life.  I've tried to explain to people but they just don't get it.  They argue with me.  The probblems that make me feel that way stay, but the people telling me not to feel it go away.I'm right back to where I was this time last year when I was praying for cancer to take me out. Dan's giving me static for going out to play pokemon at the park, while Tom is miffed because I went out into the countryside without him.  I was so glad of it too because I didn't have to listen to him complain, or cut the trip short for him.  I was able to have Tim...

Here's the drive from my last blog post.

It feels so strange to be so weak for so long.  I'm using my car to do things better done by bicycle!  I got onto that game, Pokemon Go, and I started walking a bit, cycling around downtown, and that was a blast. After about 3 days, though, I had debilitated.  It's odd, see, this pain in my butt grows till it's too much to ignore, and the pain steals my energy, but I start the day pretty okay.  I go to the park periodically because there's game stops in the park.  One is a pokemon go gym, the other end of the park is where the pokestop is.  You don't see these things except via the game, but I love the geotagging.  it's what makes this game so popular and fun.  It is surely the most popular game of all time and it's free to play and all features can be accessed without spending money, if you're patient.  The game aims to get you out and moving and I was pleased to do that, but it's just not having the right results.  Instead of it gradua...

The world really does need me.  I used to think God hated me, so I was going to be stuck here till I was 108, or learned to want to be alive.  That leaves me thinking, why then are you killing me off?  Or maybe not, I mean, it's not spread in spite of it's age and size.  Maybe I'm being taught only.  But back to the world needs me.  I believe that now.  I am important, whether they know it or not.  I've felt this way before, but not for any definable reasons, just the idea that some day I was going to do something spectacular.  Now I am pretty sure nothing I will do will be any more spectacular than what I've done, but that the little things I do are valuable.  Like how small species of animals can hold the balance of an ecosystem just going about being alive.  I really would like more humans to give a damn and visit me, I dunno.  I'm realizing that some of the extreme loneliness is in fact a direct result of my failing health....