BLACK as your hat

I write a lot of things down but rarely post because it's usually self-indulgent bollocks about dying and how scared I am.  Which is as boring for me as it is for you.

Usually I keep the fear bottled pretty well and don't dwell on it too often; like my fear of spiders, but when a bloody big one has the audacity to take over the kitchen and won't fit down the end of the Dyson hose, one has to face one's fear head on.  Yikes.

I was forced  so to do, this month, when the reality of my situation hit home because the two people to whom I had grown especially close during our weekly art therapy sessions at the hospice, had the temerity to up and die during the summer, and without checking it was ok with me first. We had become a bonded unit of individual concentration and mutual support and now it’s as if they never were, except in my head.  I know their families must be grieving, but at the hospice it’s a very every-day occurrence  and life goes on, for those of us left, as normal.  Except I can’t seem to find the normal. 

I can only find screaming and beating of my fists against the inside of my head, and a total denial that this is happening to me, even though I know it is.  I’m just not prepared to let myself actually believe it. 

It’s been two years exactly since I was diagnosed and I spent the first year being too ill to worry about dying.  This last year I have not felt particularly unwell because I’m not having chemo again, yet.  The cancer is different now. Originally it was mainly a large tumour with some little friends but they were cut away and the chemo was meant to prevent any recurrence. I had a chance of beating it, but I didn’t, and now instead of a tumour it’s a whole reef of cancer cells spread all over the inside of my abdomen. They will eventually grow so large they will prevent my gut from working. Most women with recurrent ovarian cancer die of a blocked gut. It’s horrible and I’m not brave enough.

And I don’t want chemo again. I didn’t like it and it didn’t like me. It will give me a few more months  (maybe) but at what cost? I will do it though because my daughters want me to and I want to do every thing I can for them, I can’t bear putting them through this.

Some clever dick told me there are five stages one has to go through before you accept the reality of your situation, it’s the same as grieving I’m told. First there’s disbelief, then anger, then bargaining, then sorrow and finally acceptance. I haven’t travelled far in the two years I’ve been living with this.  I don’t really understand the bargaining one. Is it just for people who believe in a loving god that (presumably) dropped them in the shit in the first place?  I’m probably stuck somewhere between Miss Disbelief and Mrs Angry, with a good side portion of extremely easily irritated, hypersensitivity and a dollop of self-pity thrown in for good measure. I am so completely fed up with being me I want to throw myself on my sword but I only have a small Swiss army knife.  And of course I would never do such a thing, I’m not so dim that I don’t realise the damage this would do.

I did have the most wonderful holiday in Canada this August with my two brilliant daughters.  I can hardly believe how lucky I am to have them. Just thinking about them makes me smile.  Coming home to my dead friends and reality has probably taken a wee bit of a toll on my usually sunny disposition (ha) - let's blame it on that shall we?