Tinker Tailor Soldier Seeker

I saw my chiro yesterday, who’s really more like a know-it-all of everything, so I trust him with his opinion and my care. So when I asked him if he thought I should have my final round of chemo, he poked a few areas of my body, and said that it’s showing that I’m making cells alright, but that I’m not killing off the old ones effectively, so that, Yes, he thinks I should have the final round.

I just emailed him to ask how a final round of chemo actually helps in that regard, because won’t that simply tax my system further, and create an even weaker “killing” system?

I don’t know. I just know that this is so hard. That I’m so tired, and I feel so beat up, and beyond what I feel capable of withstanding to spend a week in a hospital and a month watching blood counts do things, and hope, just hope beyond fucking hope that this all does anything at all.

You know, I still have a 40% chance of living according to their statistics. It’ll be 40% until the 5 year mark when my chances get higher. So, it’s not like I feel out of the woods, or safe. And when I’m not feeling safe, why do I want to put myself in a situation (hospital) that makes me feel even more out of touch with myself and my life, my serenity, my safety.

I don’t know yet. I’m not making any decisions today. I have to hear back from my oncologist about an admission date, because the eye doctor I saw yesterday is still concerned that I’m not ready for chemo while the eye infection is still not “resolved.”

Can’t I just figure it out from the inside? Find the solution, and heal myself? Can’t I just read Caroline Myss, and Anne Lamott, and this book on healing trauma, and see my depth hypnosis lady, and, as I did this week, contact a therapist who deals in somatic therapy specifically around sexual trauma? Can’t I just be a seeker, not a patient? Stop being the good soldier?

I am not a good soldier anymore. I’m the, “Don’t worry about me guys, just leave me here,” soldier right now. I’ve fought. Hard. For years. I’ve done every goddamned thing that I know how to do, and yet, I’m still scared, and crying, and human, and worried, and tired.

Can’t I just go to improv class? And call back my friend to sing with her band? And use the keyboard that the temple leant me? And say yes when people invite me out? And use this next month to not be in chemo land, but to be in recovering land, so that I can return to work a bit more than a walking corpse? (a melodramatic, but effective, visual)

Can’t I stop now?

Stop these ways of “healing,” these toxic, nuclear, vicious ways that are used because one study said so?

I sat in meditation this morning, all good soldier brain-chatter, and then finally tried to get quiet and listen to what my “insides” had to say about going for the fifth round, and I just started to cry.

I don’t know what to do. (I just got a call from the doctor, and we’re delaying the chemo at least til I see her on Tuesday to look at the eye – so there’s a stay of execution.)

I don’t like thinking, Oh, I need to ask someone to do my laundry so I have enough underwear for the hospital, or think that I have to update the lifeline calendar so I have people to bring me meals so I feel less like I’m eating prison-food in isolation.

I know how to do these rounds; even with the hiccup of the eye infection, I know how to do them. If nothing goes wonky. But it takes so much, guys. It really does. I don’t know how to re-up, or willingly accept this. I don’t know how to agree to this, and I know the impact “energetically” that has on the process. If I’m on board, and think of the chemo as helping me rather than hurting me, if I think of it as medicine that will help me get well, I know that has a better impact than thinking this is poisoning me. I believe the effect is different. But I can’t switch that thought right now. Right now, I’m in digging in my heels mode.

Thankfully, I don’t have to do anything today, except get dressed, eat something, and go with my friend to an art gallery of her friend’s work, then to my depth hypnotherapy, and then have a phone interview with the new potential specialized therapist.

That’s a lot for one day. But it beats peeing into measuring container with an IV line plugged into your chest.