Another pic-less post. I promise to do better with the visual aids in future.
So lately I've been struggling with my mood. Like, a lot. I oscillate between terror and depression about my cancer coming back, Andrew, my financial situation, and Jamie's well-being. It's like a cloud falls across my emotional landscape and I can't get out from under it. Then there are times when the the cloud blows away and I feel perfectly calm and even joyful. A cup of tea, Jamie's laugh, and especially, a visit from my parents, my sisters, a friend: these things can make me very happy. I try to focus on the importance and the permanence of the love of my family and friends versus the transitory nature of my chemo treatments, for example, and even the nausea that has gotten worse and worse over time. I am learning, painfully, how to adjust my way of thinking to change how I feel and to be satisfied with the results, no matter how short of "happy" they are.
I have also decided that more clutter is better, a significant development for someone who has been addicted to shelter mags for at least ten years. I've decided just to leave stuff out because it's easier to find and it makes the house look lived in. Sometimes, when the dread kicks in, I look at my cluttered little living room and feel a bit better. Sometimes feeling a bit better is all I can manage.
Take last week, for example. A cloud of dread-depression clung to me despite the warmth of my sister Kerri, who did laundry, projects with Jamie, and generally made us at home in our own home, probably caused by the fact I was getting sick. The day she was getting ready to leave, I started to feel feverish and took my temperature. I had a temp of about 99.5 and had begun to shake and shiver when she left. Later that night I called Ellis Fischel's Symptom Evaluation Clinic when it went up one degree and the oncologist on call told me it was okay to take tylenol or ibuprofen, but just once. I felt so lousy that I called my sister-in-law, Kerry, and asked her if Jamie and I could stay the night, then took some tylenol and waited for her to come and pick us up since I didn't feel safe to drive. At that point I was probably at my lowest ebb, mood-wise, and being with Kerry and her husband Andy helped enormously.
By the next morning I woke up feeling great and had Kerry take us home. Around lunchtime my fever came back and I called Kerry again to ask her to come to our house and watch Jamie while I went to Ellis Fischel to be evaluated. I drove myself to the hospital and went into the clinic, where, under observation, I popped a 103 degree fever and found myself booked to stay overnight.During the hours that it took for me to get a hospital bed I found myself obsessively texting my sisters and parents. One sister volunteered to come, but my parents overruled them and said that they would come back--and they had just gone home a few days before after my fourth chemo treatment. I knew Jamie was safe and my folks were on the way; and I hoped I didn't have pneumonia. The cloud of dread-depression got significantly smaller.
Later the cloud got a little bigger, mostly because I was so miserable physically. I wish I could describe how bad that hospital stay was, but on second thought, no. I'll just share one detail: I had a terrible sore throat and the resident doctor ordered me ONE throat lozenge every two hours. They weren't special morphine lozenges or anything. They were basically Sucrets--strong, but only for a few minutes. On second hand, a few more details: I didn't get a hospital gown until about 1 am and I couldn't get tylenol until around 10pm because they weren't sure what I had. Ultimately I was diagnosed with a strain of the flu, one not covered by this year's flu shot (which I got), and told to rest, take tylenol, and drink lots of fluid when I was discharged. I bounced joyfully out of there at 1:00 pm or so the next day. And then I went home and ate about 3 throat drops in a row in a mad act of rebellion. The cloud of dread-depression lifted for awhile.
And it hasn't come back too much since then. One reason: Andrew is out of the hospital.The other: I am halfway through my chemo. Tomorrow is my fifth of eight treatments, so I'll be more than halfway done. And finally: I increased my Zoloft dosage.
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