You're All Invited
This happens a lot: friends and relatives will be talking to me, and will mention in passing some personal problem or worry or obstacle that has recently popped up in their lives. And then suddenly, they cut themselves short and quickly apologize. "Oh I'm sorry, I shouldn't even bring this up," they say, looking chagrined. "I mean, I know it's nothing compared to cancer."
I'm not sure they believe me when I try to tell them how wrong they are. It's not nothing, no matter how trivial, not to me anyway. I haven't relocated to some alien universe where only people with cancer have a right to complain, or feel discouraged, or depressed, or whatever.
Will anyone ever believe me if I tell them that the cancer is often the least of my worries? It's serious and all, sure, and the process of dealing with it continues to drain a hell of a lot from me. But most of the time I feel like the cancer is just annoying background noise, like living next to a freeway or an airport. Or maybe both at the same time. You hate it, yeah, but you get used to it. And it certainly doesn't drown out the rest of your life's woes.
In all honesty, I feel more debilitating anxiety over my financial disaster; deeper heartache over my foundering relationship; greater terror over the state of the world. A few weeks ago I nearly died, and it was a frickin migraine that brought me to my knees. Not the stage IV cancer or its barbaric chemotherapy. A weasely little migraine.
Maybe only people who've experienced both cancer and severe migraines can really appreciate the irony.
But please: dear friends, dear relatives, dear total strangers on the internet, don't be intimidated by this hideous cancer beast. Continue to feel free to bitch at length around me about your own personal issues and challenges! I am so tired of being the only person in the room who isn't a goddamn trouper. I feel isolated enough as it is. Please, somebody join me.
I'm not sure they believe me when I try to tell them how wrong they are. It's not nothing, no matter how trivial, not to me anyway. I haven't relocated to some alien universe where only people with cancer have a right to complain, or feel discouraged, or depressed, or whatever.
Will anyone ever believe me if I tell them that the cancer is often the least of my worries? It's serious and all, sure, and the process of dealing with it continues to drain a hell of a lot from me. But most of the time I feel like the cancer is just annoying background noise, like living next to a freeway or an airport. Or maybe both at the same time. You hate it, yeah, but you get used to it. And it certainly doesn't drown out the rest of your life's woes.
In all honesty, I feel more debilitating anxiety over my financial disaster; deeper heartache over my foundering relationship; greater terror over the state of the world. A few weeks ago I nearly died, and it was a frickin migraine that brought me to my knees. Not the stage IV cancer or its barbaric chemotherapy. A weasely little migraine.
Maybe only people who've experienced both cancer and severe migraines can really appreciate the irony.
But please: dear friends, dear relatives, dear total strangers on the internet, don't be intimidated by this hideous cancer beast. Continue to feel free to bitch at length around me about your own personal issues and challenges! I am so tired of being the only person in the room who isn't a goddamn trouper. I feel isolated enough as it is. Please, somebody join me.
posted by Lymphopo at Sunday, November 26, 2006
14 Comments:
ok then. I'm really upset about the environment and global warming and the whole 'lose half the species before 100 years are up' thing and then add to that the Al Gore movie and his ominous 10 year fix it or too late prophecy. I feel like I have had my head in the sand. I feel like any efforts I make to help are insignificant given I'm one persona AND I feel they are nullified by all the crazy people who won't take proactive measures 'til legislated to do so' or who were too busy waiting in line for a PS3 or whatever.
I'm scared, did not realize this world was in such a state and its really eating away at my outlook. I'm at a bit of a loss. This life I fought cancer for to survive, fought through 2 shit marriages to thrive, and I've potentially been the walking dead all the time...
And on top of all that, you now live in Louisiana where you're as likely to get crashed by a damn cane truck this time of year as not! And then they start burning the cane fields. Move over, I'm with you.
uh... cane truck/field/what!!! nobody told me about this new fun thing lol. but then they said the skeeters would be gone after the first cold day, lies..... and now that I mention canes, well his head is shaking in 'dunno what you're talkin 'bout'... conspiracy to get us down this way, him, fema, road home, sba... oh to be wanted... maybe all the passive aggressive southern bell types in this stepford city needed a new girl to harass.. oops said that out loud too lol....
Okay, how come I've been going to the gym and I'm GAINING weight? WTF is that about, huh, huh? I got on the scale and almost sank through the tiles. I mean, I'm getting toned and all but those muthafucking numbers MEAN something to me, especially when they go downward. DAMN. When the number goes up, I start thinking of hari kari with a butter knife - with butter on it of course!
Ignore the scale! You could be gaining muslce and losing fat, which would be good, but the ignorant scale would be a big drama queen about it. The only way to be sure where the pounds are coming from is to invest in calipers and a tape measure, and keep track of your waistline & abdominal fat. Or ask your gym if they have a device like Futrex that measures your percentage of body fat. BF% is the number you (and I, for different reasons) want to watch, not the stupid scale. Scale is dumber than a bag of Barbies.
I've had a cold for something like eight days. I'm an amputee, because of cancer, so that means that I've been on my ass for eight days because I haven't felt well enough to put on pants, let alone strap on my leg. During the last eight days, I've had sinus headaches so bad they rivaled some of my less memorable migraines. My boyfriend's been sick this whole time, too; in fact he caught this cold at the office, where none of the people he works with are mature enough to stay home when they know they are contagiously ill. If that weren't bad enough, all my cats are dead. And all that means there is no one in the world to snuggle me while I'm horking up green and blood-clotted snot and wearing ice packs on my nose.
Oh, and it's so warm here in Massachusetts because of global warming that there are still mosquitoes flying around and biting me when I do venture out. I found this out today when I filled the bird feeders for the first time in over a week. And it's been so wet here that there are so many mushrooms growing in the entire season's deciduous leaves still moistly clumping all over my yard because my landlord hasn't sent anyone to clean them up yet, ostensibly because of all the rain, that the air around my front door smells absolutely fungal, which is in no way mitigated by the fact that now that the caps on the latest crop of eight-inch-tall beauties have already disintegrated, their stalks are rotting and dying in clusters like so many insect-covered flaccid white penises collapsing to the ground after the peak of that initial thrust out of the earth. And all that means is that it will probably snow here in May.
There, you feel better?
Are you sure its a cold you two have and not an allergy to mold? You may want to make sure that you don't have any toxic spores growing in your basement.
OK, continue.
Now THAT'S the spirit! Brava!
Okay, here's my bitchy rant for the day.
Yesterday, when I was walking my dog, a car came up behind me and some jerky teenagers yelled some stuff at me. Then, on my way back home, the same car pulled up behind me and blared an airhorn. Now, I happen to recognize that car, because it has a custom license plate which commemorates the death of the teenage driver's younger brother a few years ago. The asshole parents bought an ATV for a 12 year old, which he promptly drove into the path of a pickup truck. Then the asshole parents had the chutzpah to sue the driver of the pickup truck on behalf of the older brother and managed to score a small financial windfall an account of the "trauma" associated with witnessing said accident. Clearly, older brother did not learn his lesson, because he's now playing chicken with an even larger internal combustion engine toy. My maternal instincts tell me that I should write an anonymous letter to the asshole parents, informing them of their son's reckless behaviour. But my bitchy baser instincts tell me to mind my own business and let Darwinism take its course, thus sparing the gene pool from such assholery. Decisions, decisions. What would Lymphopo do?
I say, sadly, it's probably too late. Go with Darwin.
My 14-year-old cat Lilly is in the hospital with a severe kidney infection. I had to put my 18-year-old cat Tiye to sleep in August, and I'm scared to lose another of my dear companions.
xx
Artemis
Because of my cancer, one of my friends didn't want to tell me she was getting divorced. It felt too trivial, she said.
Hey, I responded, four months of chemo and I'm done. Your problem is going to take a little longer to sort out.
People are funny (tm).
My rabbit ate my favorite Lawman jeans.
I can't get laid to save my life.
My company replaced the vending machines with new ones and now the stale Cheetos cost 85 cents instead of 70 cents.
I have a big zit on the back of my head and it itches.
My cat, Zero, is slowly destroying my $1200 solid oak front door by picking away at it with his claws.
And I get migraines, too. They suck. They knock me out for days at a time.
Gah, my mother is up my ass too! Ack! Plus there's no fucking way I'm shaving my head in solidarity. I'm sorry but it's just too damn cold up here, I need it for warmth. Troupers can bite my ass.
Lastly, to Rose, unless you or a loved one is in imminent danger of injury by a potential Darwin candidate it's ALWAYS better to let natural selection take it's course. If you coddle the species it will *never* evolve and, wait a minute, crap, it's too late. Were already devolving.
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