2002-07-19

11:50 p.m.

I shamefully slipped away from daily writing. Not necessarily for health reasons, although today�s �treatment number 4� wasn�t such a grand event.

I was very tired from a week of bed hopping (in the boring sense) and hobo-ing around while D was out of town. It didn�t help that I was up at several different times last night and woke up with a bad case of anticipatory nausea. I was in a shitty mood by the time we got to the doctors and to make things worse I was forced to, like, decide something within the first ten minutes.

Did I want to get my blood drawn now, or through the port, one poke or two? I couldn�t decide. I didn�t care. I hate those hospital �scrubs� with bunnies on them. I felt bad that I didn�t bring S or K with me since the blood draw ladies like them so much one of them asked where my friend with the stories was. I felt terrible. Where was she? Could I call her? Can she decide about my blood draw?

After nearly having a crying fit over a no-brainer decision I sat down to get my �port accessed�. D had staked claim at the far end of the chemo room.

Nearly 30 minutes passed and the nurse came to tell me about a �minor glitch�. Low blood counts. Now I had to decide between a lower treatment dose or starting on Neupogen shots the next day. My anti-needle who-cares-if-I-die personality (one of several) immediately objected to the shots. The nurse looked like I was nuts. But she is an oncology nurse, which makes her close to saint status, and she tried to assure me that I had a choice and she would give me some time to think about it. D said nothing and picked at his fingers, which for some reason I wanted to chop off at the moment. Someone needed to see I was done deciding and I needed some sleep.

Unfortunately, no matter how many times I childishly replied, �I don�t care� I was the one who ended up sending my soon-to-be-sore ass down the path to daily shots. I didn�t want to be the one to decide but there it was.

I hate cancer. I hate shots. I hate treatment. I didn�t try to see several oncologists back in May for any other reason than to look for the one that didn�t recommend chemo. And here I am chemo woman with daily shots and a resistance to making my own decisions.

I slept through most of treatment and for over 6 hours after we got home. I started to feel better after 9 pm and I caught up on email and phone messages in a hurry in order to get back to my new time suck: �Sex and the City�.

S lent me the DVD of the complete second season. I had only seen one episode about a year ago. I started to watch the episodes as distraction from the dark and empty house while D was away but it�s beyond that now. I�m on to season three and it only been a couple days. How a person can find enough free time to watch entire television seasons in a few sittings is pure mystery.

I was experiencing a serious cancer treatment fatigue episode last night but I was able to muster up the energy to visit two different video stores, one via a half-eye-open bike ride, in order to get the rest of season three. I am 2/3 of the way through that one.

Lucky for me I am not alone in this particular addiction. D has taken interest in the show. At first I thought it was a new thing. Then I find out that he was most likely a junkie back in the summer of 2001 when he had cable for 6 months. He hasn�t fully admitted this and I am still in the information gathering stages. You think you know someone�

I have silently forgiven him for the non-assertive, non-decision-making, nervous hand-picking chemo event this morning. And as far as the cinnamon roll he ate in front of me knowing full well that it is one of only two or three absolute chemo-barfy no-nos�well that�s another story. One that I don�t think I have the energy or focus to tell until I have viewed the last six episodes of season 3.

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