This week has been largely...positive. There have been a few stresses - unraveling the bills coming in, fighting insurance, making heads or tails of the binder I keep for it. I swear, there needs to be an app for that! (Note to self: Build app; get rich).
I am on less chemo (not necessarily a victory, even though it might sound like it) but it does afford me somewhat of a respite from side effects. By the Friday after chemo I am usually on the couch in hardcore sleep mode. This time I organized my closet. My hands and feet though have peaked - there are ten ice cubes (or...fingercicles?) attached to me that feel gross (if they feel anything at all), and fail to open bottles, containers, and who have epic battles with buttons.
I went to work most of the week. Being there helps distract me from the weirdness of my life. I feel like I slip back into the world I knew, only everyone is super happy I am there. I try to pretend it just another day and they just really like me.
I tell my husband that my priority is living a normal life. I have started doing my artwork again, reading a good book, pursuing my ambitions. I think the fear that paralyzed us in the beginning begins to wear off and...slowly, we return to doing human things like us humans do. There are still hard times - but I tell my husband my fears and he tells me everything will be ok. And some days, we switch off...I hold him and tell him the same.
There is one thing I will say - and if I may ask permission to get mushy - is that I feel lucky to have Michael as my partner in crime. We all believe our spouse loves us (hopefully) but it's under extreme stress that you really see the raw person at their core. We are very different people, but we share an absurd and obscene sense of humor, a love of building forts out of our couch cushions, and just the right amount of bourgeois sensibilities. I married him pretty soon after we reunited, but I never looked back. Not once.
Fast forward to now. This man gets up every morning and makes me breakfast, opens every jar that may vex me, puts lotion on my hands and feet to stave away chemo's effects, and he kisses the spot where my stupid liver is every night - in hopes that it too will know its loved. The power of love will do what the doctors can't is what we secretly tell ourselves.
My mom's boyfriend told her that he has great respect for him since he found out that my husband helps me with my colostomy bag. My husband furrowed his brow. "I only do what any husband would do. Nothing more." I don't think he realizes that he is not "every husband." Not everyone signs up for "in sickness and in health" even if it was in their vows. In the beginning, I could not even look at my stoma, much less care for it. It felt like some sort of terrible horror movie transformation, like Jeff Goldblum watching himself turning into the fly. Michael would clean it, change it, make sure it was healing...he could look at that giant fly he now had for a wife and tell her she was beautiful. Even now, when he is helping me, I look at him and feelings of love rush through my brain. Feelings of awe, of joy...I see a man that loves me unconditionally.
And being loved makes all the difference to me.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Our (unofficial) song from when we were kids. They took down the official video but a great song by Maxwell. It's made me think of him for the last 16 years.
I am on less chemo (not necessarily a victory, even though it might sound like it) but it does afford me somewhat of a respite from side effects. By the Friday after chemo I am usually on the couch in hardcore sleep mode. This time I organized my closet. My hands and feet though have peaked - there are ten ice cubes (or...fingercicles?) attached to me that feel gross (if they feel anything at all), and fail to open bottles, containers, and who have epic battles with buttons.
I went to work most of the week. Being there helps distract me from the weirdness of my life. I feel like I slip back into the world I knew, only everyone is super happy I am there. I try to pretend it just another day and they just really like me.
I tell my husband that my priority is living a normal life. I have started doing my artwork again, reading a good book, pursuing my ambitions. I think the fear that paralyzed us in the beginning begins to wear off and...slowly, we return to doing human things like us humans do. There are still hard times - but I tell my husband my fears and he tells me everything will be ok. And some days, we switch off...I hold him and tell him the same.
There is one thing I will say - and if I may ask permission to get mushy - is that I feel lucky to have Michael as my partner in crime. We all believe our spouse loves us (hopefully) but it's under extreme stress that you really see the raw person at their core. We are very different people, but we share an absurd and obscene sense of humor, a love of building forts out of our couch cushions, and just the right amount of bourgeois sensibilities. I married him pretty soon after we reunited, but I never looked back. Not once.
Fast forward to now. This man gets up every morning and makes me breakfast, opens every jar that may vex me, puts lotion on my hands and feet to stave away chemo's effects, and he kisses the spot where my stupid liver is every night - in hopes that it too will know its loved. The power of love will do what the doctors can't is what we secretly tell ourselves.
My mom's boyfriend told her that he has great respect for him since he found out that my husband helps me with my colostomy bag. My husband furrowed his brow. "I only do what any husband would do. Nothing more." I don't think he realizes that he is not "every husband." Not everyone signs up for "in sickness and in health" even if it was in their vows. In the beginning, I could not even look at my stoma, much less care for it. It felt like some sort of terrible horror movie transformation, like Jeff Goldblum watching himself turning into the fly. Michael would clean it, change it, make sure it was healing...he could look at that giant fly he now had for a wife and tell her she was beautiful. Even now, when he is helping me, I look at him and feelings of love rush through my brain. Feelings of awe, of joy...I see a man that loves me unconditionally.
And being loved makes all the difference to me.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Our (unofficial) song from when we were kids. They took down the official video but a great song by Maxwell. It's made me think of him for the last 16 years.
I'm so glad he is there taking care of you, what a perfect husband! :)
ReplyDeleteI think so! :)
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