For the last two weeks, I have been the poster-child for redundancy. The December before my initial diagnosis I was laid up for a few weeks with a bout of pneumonia. That was December 2008. December 2009 I found myself plagued again with pneumonia - a slightly worse case. December 2010, I was in bed for over 3 weeks with pneumonia. I could not move. I could not read. I could not watch movies. All I could do was stare out the window and doze intermittently between fever-induced hallucinations.
December 2011 came and squeaked by and I thought...YAY! Dodged the pneumonia bullet this December.
January 3rd I was inflicted again. What is with my lungs?!
I have managed to stay out of bed this round. In fact, I haven't even been able to sleep for nearly 8 nights. I finally got an ozone treatment on Wednesday and had my first night sleep since January 3. (Thank you Dr. John) I have been walking. Not talking...much. And keeping up...sort of.
I have found myself bogged down with lethargy. I am so frickin' tired! All the time. Everything is an effort. Including, but not limited to, breathing.
Through this, I have been acutely aware of how I am so inundated with cancer. I am not referring to my body (though with cancer wheedling its way through my lymphatic system...) but I refer to my "world."
I reconnect with an old dear friend, and I find that she has lost a friend to breast cancer; and has just had another diagnosed at stage I.
I check my morning emails and find the journal of a colleague who is about to undergo a protocol of radiation (and anyone who has followed BooBeeTrap knows my personal feelings about conventional treatments) ... and I bite back my opinions. Treatment paths are personal paths to be respected...so I manage to curtail my tourette-like comments to myself.
I pick up our local newspaper and read an announcement about a neighborhood garage sale to benefit a single mother who is having difficulty keeping up with her bills while she is going through debilitating adjuvant treatment.
I turn on the news and barraged with extended ads for SGK's 3-day run. (OY! this helps, how?...but I digress to my usual pink-questioning...)
Redundancy. Sad. Heartrending. Overwhelming. Life-cycle. Predictable. Redundancy. Even this post.
TC - so sorry you're having to deal with pneumonia crap. Hoping you feel better soon! Looking foward to bitchblogging alongside you in 2012!
ReplyDeleteRachel - thank you! Just as the pneumonia was getting better, allergies hit. Can you believe it. I haven't breathed in over 2 weeks . And aside from the night after the ozone treatment, no sleep. Still...the day and donuts must be made. I know I am b*tching to the choir...but do you ever just get so very tired just having to "act" like a functioning human being? It takes all energy reserves. ~TC
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