Not+a+lot+of+fun.



8/23/06** Careful on this one, I am on the rebound from 'a lapse in my composure' and am very bitter right now. Self-awareness is a good thing, right?

School has, of course started again. Mike is taking some classes. This is a good thing. It sure as hell beats sitting around contemplating your own mortality. I have my classes, too. I can at least immerse myself in a lecture for an hour-and-a-half, or two, or three. The problem is, when I surface again, hoping to find it was all a figment of my imagination, this reality is still here staring at me. I worry about Mike and Laurine, do they ever escape it? I feel guilty that for the space of a lecture I have not obsessed over Mike's situation. Have I forgotten him? But what good does my worrying do? This is so morbid. (Was that a pun?) Right now there is so much fear of the future and grief.

It is called 'anticipatory grief.' Much as if, not content to know the train is coming to smash you, you repeatedly stab yourself -- not mortally, of course, to do so mortally is illegal and sets a bad precedent. Now, keep in mind, "the energies of anticipatory grief can be channeled into positive directions." (I imagine a youthful, healthy, smiling, physically fit, exquisitely tailored salesperson beaming those words to me through perfectly straight and whitened teeth.) Perhaps this is the time we should go plot shopping? Casket sampling? Get the best buy on stone engraving. Perhaps we can even scrap-book this entire affair -- prints of lab tests with deckled edges. We could print copies of the MRI's with brightly colored party hats, streamers, and balloons surrounding the tumor. Should we have saved the first I.V. line?

Forgive me this selfishness. I do not write these things to defend them, nor do I express them to offend or hurt you. I write these so that I can get them, hopefully, out of my head. Maybe you can understand.

It is so strange -- it is almost like a totally different landscape. This tumor threatens to define us. It is a damned mass of tissue the size of two thirds my pinky. One of the things that Mike hates the most is that those around him who know what is happening cannot seem to discuss anything except chemo, or cancer, or doctors; those who do not know what is going on make comments about how he is losing hair, or how he is letting himself slip, or how he really looks like hell today. It would be nice for him just to discuss anything other than tumors. Discuss classes, guns, single action revolvers, rabbits, Jeeps, Rammstein, politics-religion-the mideast-whytheskyisblue.....

I am really careening all the hell over the place today. I think I need a nap... or maybe someone needs to shoot me in the butt with a deer tranquilizer -- just keep your distance till I hit the ground and am out, I may kick, scratch, or bite.

Ten minutes to lecture. Take a deep breath and shake those hoofies.