With A Little Help From......................

I can hear people talking behind my back. Gossiping. And that...drives me crazy. Here's what I'm feeling...

I tell someone, maybe one person, that I don't feel so well. I think it's the pills but I'm not sure because it could be anything. I tell myself it's not cancer because that makes me feel safe and anyway I felt good a few weeks ago when I WASN'T doing chemo so I know I CAN feel well and then I started feeling crummy when the chemo began again and I started to have pain again so I had to take the dreaded pain pills which make me want to kill myself. And that is not an exaggeration. So I tell one person how I'm feeling because I live alone now and I have to reach out every once in a while and within a few minutes I get phone calls from people I haven't spoken to about my feelings and all of these people have their idea about what I should do and an attitude about me like "Awwwwww." or "Gosh, poor Trish. She's been through so much. She looks so tired. I'm worried about her." And I can feel their phone calls. I can feel the gossip. And I am the center of it and it makes me nuts. I want my life to be private. But,, come on, let's get real. I'm writing a blog, for God's sake. If I wanted to be private would I write a blog that anyone can read? Even people I don't know read it. And that's good. I like that. And this is when I go to a place that I should be far away from by now. And that place is thinking about the man formerly known as my husband because if he had not left me I would have gone through this turmoil JUST with him. I wouldn't have to put it out there for the world to read and to help me through. And maybe it would have been more relaxing and someone would have stroked my little bald head in the middle of the night. I told him early on that he COULD come and help me IF he didn't have his girlfriend and which would make me feel that he was there for me NOT for himself, to make himself feel better. But he couldn't let go of his girlfriend so I opted for doing this alone... With a little help from my friends. And I love my friends. So what am I rambling on about?

Maybe I'm weak. Weaker than I thought I was. I am, yes, freaking out under the weight of all of these drugs. Dr. Shaum, being an oncologist, thinks it's the circumstances that are making me feel sad and suicidal. I don't think so. Am I crazy to think she might be wrong about this? She's a doctor for goodness sake. She must be smarter than I am. But maybe she's just smarter when it comes to chemo and cancer and maybe I know myself better in a certain way that she couldn't possibly know. Does she know that I haven't actually been to see a doctor for most of my life. That I never even had a cold or the flu in last thirty years. That I only get dramatic things like cancer when I get sick. Maybe that makes me special and I should let myself feel special for a little while.

And here's where I hook around and wonder that if people are gossiping about me does that make me special? Would I feel worse if people weren't talking about me at all?

Are these the drugs talking?

Tomorrow is chemo again. I feel a bit better today than I did yesterday. Oh, if only I could feel better tomorrow but I'm going to be poisoned again so for about a week I'll feel crummy and go through the old pill popping routine, trying to figure out how much to take just to feel normal and not to take too many because that hurts almost more than the pain. And what the hell is this pain? Still haven't figured out that one.

You know what I want to do? I want to laugh. I want to look at life and laugh. Because that's how I usually look at things. From a funny point of view. That's why I know the pills are affecting me. Because things don't seem so funny right now. Oh, I guess my hair or the absense thereof is funny. But not THAT funny. And how long can I laugh at my hair before it just becomes an insane person laughing at themselves in the mirror. It's hard to look in the mirror these days. Not that I spent much time doing that before. I told you I have these laughing Buddhas all over the place. Little statues. And they're all laughing. What the hell are they laughing at?

That's what I'm going to do during chemo tomorrow. I'm going to try and figure out what they're laughing at. My guess right now is...Themselves. They are laughing at themselves. Hmmmm. Excuse me for a moment. I'm going to go into the bathroom and check out my mirror.

Oh...I see....Of course...Hahahahahahahahahaha..........................................