Why I Chemo Against a Hopeless Situation
It isn't often that I sit down to write here when I don't have a topic at the top of my mind. But this morning I don't seem to have a driving thought. Tomorrow starts chemo: half a day at the infusion center and two more days (until roughly noon Wednesday) with the pump. I hate the pump. Not only is it damned inconvenient to lug around for two days, it also helps insure that I don't start recovering from the drugs for an extra few days. I've really gone well into this off-week before feeling more nearly like a functional human being. (Yeah, chemo sucks)
It would make a difference is we were trying to effect a remission of the cancer, but there is no Get Out of Jail card on this cancer. There is only delaying the inevitable. So, while the oncologist tries to delay with drugs, I have to come up with personal reasons to continue fighting against the tide. And I do.
One big reason is that my wife needs someone to care for her. We are working on getting people in to help her with a lot of the things I do now: run errands for her, do the dishes, sometimes do her laundry, clean the house (I am at best an indifferent housekeeper), and bring in the mail and the paper. I'm sure I do help her, and I realize that doing these little things helps me a lot; they give me a sense of purpose I might otherwise lack.
I also have a big goal of going back to my friend Dan's sweat lodge on October 6, 2019. That's a year after the one we just did, and we all agreed that if I came, they would come, and we would again have a powerful spiritual circle of prayer and rejoicing, love and hope. I have sat in sweat lodges poured by other people. I few I have felt powerful spiritual forces moving. Others were just hot and void of anything spiritual (for me; I can't speak to how others felt). So I'm not one to shop for sweat lodges just to sweat; there's a sauna at an athletic club up the street where I go when I want to sweat. But Dan pours a powerful sweat, but you would have to experience it. I can't describe it other than to say that I've never sat in lodge with him and heard or felt anything that was not sincere and heartfelt. So I'm always up to doing that one more time.
Then if I really want to get ambitious, I set the goal of voting in the 2020 general election. That goal is well outside the survival window set by my doctors of 18 months max. (which would be February 2020). If I can make it into October 2020, I can absentee vote, and once it's in I believe it will count whatever happens to me, although I would like to see how that election plays out.
So at least I can say I'm still engaged in the world and the people who are important to me and to whom I am important. (Yes, there are people who are important to me but who no longer wish to have anything to do with me. Accepting that is hard in a couple of cases, but I'm sitting with acceptance that what needs to be will be.)
I think having a sense of purpose is important to everyone. Purpose is what drives our lives. This is not a cancer thing or a chemo thing. And right now it is serving me powerfully and well.
It would make a difference is we were trying to effect a remission of the cancer, but there is no Get Out of Jail card on this cancer. There is only delaying the inevitable. So, while the oncologist tries to delay with drugs, I have to come up with personal reasons to continue fighting against the tide. And I do.
One big reason is that my wife needs someone to care for her. We are working on getting people in to help her with a lot of the things I do now: run errands for her, do the dishes, sometimes do her laundry, clean the house (I am at best an indifferent housekeeper), and bring in the mail and the paper. I'm sure I do help her, and I realize that doing these little things helps me a lot; they give me a sense of purpose I might otherwise lack.
I also have a big goal of going back to my friend Dan's sweat lodge on October 6, 2019. That's a year after the one we just did, and we all agreed that if I came, they would come, and we would again have a powerful spiritual circle of prayer and rejoicing, love and hope. I have sat in sweat lodges poured by other people. I few I have felt powerful spiritual forces moving. Others were just hot and void of anything spiritual (for me; I can't speak to how others felt). So I'm not one to shop for sweat lodges just to sweat; there's a sauna at an athletic club up the street where I go when I want to sweat. But Dan pours a powerful sweat, but you would have to experience it. I can't describe it other than to say that I've never sat in lodge with him and heard or felt anything that was not sincere and heartfelt. So I'm always up to doing that one more time.
Then if I really want to get ambitious, I set the goal of voting in the 2020 general election. That goal is well outside the survival window set by my doctors of 18 months max. (which would be February 2020). If I can make it into October 2020, I can absentee vote, and once it's in I believe it will count whatever happens to me, although I would like to see how that election plays out.
So at least I can say I'm still engaged in the world and the people who are important to me and to whom I am important. (Yes, there are people who are important to me but who no longer wish to have anything to do with me. Accepting that is hard in a couple of cases, but I'm sitting with acceptance that what needs to be will be.)
I think having a sense of purpose is important to everyone. Purpose is what drives our lives. This is not a cancer thing or a chemo thing. And right now it is serving me powerfully and well.
posted by Tom | 7:56 AM
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