Madoc has Two Daddies

Last night, I was up at least once each hour. The problem is that the thick mucous pools in my throat makes me feel like I'm choking, so obviously, it's not easy to sleep. The radiation has pulled my mouth into a knot, my neck looks like I've lost a sword fight, and the too much sun look on my face has turned a more violent red. This, I hope, is nearing the peak of its power over me. 

Today's radiation treatment puts me over the 50% mark toward the end of this treatment phase. With any luck, it's the only phase I'll need, but luck isn't something I'm counting on. Given there are growths to monitor that popped up during this phase, I'm betting on a phase 2 rather than against it. Surely it will be nice to kvell when such a possibility is nixed, if it is, so I'm hedging my reality with hope, as I think I should. 

I finally gave up at 4:30 this morning, after rousing Scott for the umpteenth time and being rewarded with a killer back rub, I stumbled into the living room and grabbed my computer. The pinched mouth of mine and the swollen everything means that my limited conversation skills are worse than they've lately been--it's virtually impossible to tell what I'm saying. So I like to play Civilization V on my laptop as a way to pass time and unwind, with no one to talk to other than the AI players, as I various threaten, cajole, or attack, my way to world domination. 

This morning, though, Scott forwarded the first picture we've received of our new baby, Madoc, the Welsh Terrier, who is just coming up to two weeks old, out in Turlock, CA. The breeder sent litter photos of adorable terrier pups, dark black and rich brown puppy colored, with little gremlin ears. They all look alike. ln adulthood, their black mellows and their brown beiges, but right now, he is the color of ink and chocolate. 

By the end of treatment, Madoc will be just over the horizon from coming home...I'll have a couple of weeks to begin to live beyond radiation and chemo appointments, and look forward to every two hour bathroom runs with this little creature. I'd originally thought it would be good to have a pup to force me up and out when I'm tired, during treatment, but frankly, I'm very glad that's not to be. Cancer is taking so much of my time, my attentive resources, my emotions, that it would be difficult to find the moxie I need to make certain a Welsh Terrier was not using the carpet as ersatz toilet. 

In so many ways, I overestimated myself during this treatment plan. Because I had sailed through surgery, I thought I'd do the same with radiation and with chemo--and to some extent, chemo has been as doable as I thought. It's the intense daily shot of rays that are really the problem. I thought I'd start a new job in SF in spite of the schedule; I thought I'd keep the apartment spotless; I thought I'd cook gourmet as much as I possibly could; I thought I'd take a class. The thought of those thoughts almost makes me laugh, were they not so horrendously outside any concept of reality.

I am so ungodly tired sometimes. There were a couple of days when gesturing was more than I thought I could do. This is a tired that is not from exertion--it is bored into one as surely as a tunnel is created. It comes from chemicals and machines, and has no locus, but spreads throughout the body and indiscriminately destroys whatever it touches. The flexion of muscle is meaningless against it. This is fatigue so powerful that it is its own universe, and its own rules. Sleep doesn't slough it off. It simply is. 

Cast against that reality, again thinking of my mother and sister and everything they did while they went through these treatments, I wonder why I'm so behind-hand, why I cannot be or do everything they did and were--but that's cancer--never the same for anyone. And the fact that I defer the love of a pup until I'm better able to answer it is probably one of the braver and smarter things I've ever done. 

I'm looking forward to the end of the mucous problem, much as I'm looking forward to the point where I jump off the radiation table for the last time, at least in this plan. I see Madoc as a great reward that's to come to me and to Scott, a wonderful cosmic thank you for playing, a prize. Not just a back rub at 4am when I'm sitting on the side of the bed, contemplating what to do--a real, live, reminder that life is for always creating horizons, and events, and always for looking forward to how you make it to them...red faced, swollen, tired, or dark black and rich brown.