[Cancer, Personal]
[cancer|personal] Walking, thinking, God again, and a bit of scavenging
Walked Buena Vista this morning solo, while
On the way home (ie, mostly downhill) I passed another street-level informal recycling point, and scored several Brita water pitcher filters still in their sealed paks. Those suckers are spendy. Does this make me a true San Franciscan, or an aspiring homeless guy? I’m not sure.
During the course of the walk I noticed that my somatic sense of the surgery sites has changed yet again. The hallucinations of swelling in my left flank are almost gone, but I still have phantom swelling. Or phantom phantom swelling, I suppose, as earlier on they felt real, and while I still feel them now, they don’t feel real anymore. Less intense. On the right chest, my festive holiday bruising is almost gone, and the feeling that someone left a Bic pen inside my chest has shrunk to something like a Cross refill cartridge. I can sleep on either side now, albeit somewhat uncomfortably, and though it’s not back to normal, I can see normal from here.
I’ve been reflecting lately on smaller concerns as well as the big ones — those latter of course being cancer itself, my sexuality, my mental acuity during chemo, etc. The smaller ones border on the silly, but they still carry their own reality. One is, what if I get mugged, or arrested, or something? Both sides of my chest compromised and problems with my left shoulder. I’d be in agony, or worse. (Yeah, yeah, I know, but I think of these things.)
Second, what if I had a heart attack? The relative of a friend recently died of a heart attack in part because his symptoms were masked by severe flu plus a fall injuring his left side. Guess what? I have chest pain all the time, due to the neural damage from the partial thoracectomy. When walking or engaging in other vigorous activites (yes, including sex), my sternum is under pressure from my lungs not being quite right yet. My core temp swings, so sometimes I get chills and sweats. In other words, except for the left side numbness, I have the basic heart attack symptoms almost all the time.
They’re not a heart attack, but still, it makes me wonder. And the standard “are you experiencing chest pains” medical screening question now requires a somewhat detailed answer.
Likewise, I now never go anywhere without a packed containing instructions about my current medical situation, including instructions for the port implant, and a sterile Huber needle, which is required to access the port, and not normally stocked in ambulances or Emergency Departments. I am currently wearing a wristband identifying me as a port implantee, and once chemo starts I’ll switch to a Med Alert bracelet that documents the side effects, such as risk of severe bleeding, as well as my status as a chemotherapy patient.
Oi. Life changes, and it changes again.
In other news,
At any rate,
Posted: 8:26 am Mon December 28 2009 |
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You are reading the blog of Jay Lake, speculative fiction writer and author of hundreds of short stories, many novels, and winner of the John W. Campbell Award.
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Meran
December 29th, 2009 at 8:14 amI never responded to your previous religion posting…( not that I’m required to
) however, I thought you might like my opinion (laughing hard here)…
I agree with you 120%.
I heard an author review on “Good without God”, ordered it; it’s about Humanism. I guess if a label must be put on my/our belief system, it would be that one.
My sis-in-law and her daughters don’t spend time with us much.. You see, since we don’t attend church, and are therefore hell-bound, for all eternity, they keep their emotional distance. How’s that for a great, Christian, ideal?
This was NOT my mother’s church! Christianity has changed greatly in my lifetime, not for the better.
Strength of will, a wonderful support system, healthy practices, all these will guide you to better health; a religious miracle (my niece personally experienced a medical one last year), well, is highly, umm, doubtful.
Keep the stress low and manageable; that helps too.
And dialogue is nice, but hey, that can also be stressful.
The smell of cookies is therapeutic too, you know. I’ll be working on those soon..
Jay
December 29th, 2009 at 8:31 amMmm… cookies. And yes, it’s probably more accurate to call me a Humanist than an Atheist.
Ah, framing.
Meran
December 29th, 2009 at 9:39 amI abhor labels, myself; yet I find myself using them all the time.. I’m such a hypocrit! (to use a biblical reference, lol)
I’ve known as many atheists as church-goers; I’ve noticed that most atheists, in order to disbelieve, must acknowledge God to do so (I could prob say that better); I think Humanism doesn’t need that premise.
Adelheid_p
December 29th, 2009 at 7:59 pmI prefer to think of the divine as with in each of us. But then, I don’t describe myself as a Christian and I attend a Unitarian church. I like the encouragement to explore our own spiritual paths.