A year ago, this date, I was injected with a cocktail of poisons designed to kill any remaining breast cancer cells. It was the first of eight monthly injections. Turned out, it was the last round because it nearly killed my cancer’s host.
I’m still struggling with the after-effects of the chemo and the sepsis that took advantage of a staph infection lurking in my body after Covid-19 and mastectomy surgeries from almost twelve months earlier. According to the infectious disease expert (part of the team trying to keep me alive), I shouldn’t be here.
When I let myself think about what all has happened since mid-December last year, depression settles in. I wonder if maybe it would’ve been better to let sepsis win.
Then I remember the advantages I’ve had, the breaks, the unimaginable gifts of good fortune that have allowed me to live on, no matter the miseries, the pains and the permanent changes to this 75-plus-year-old body. And I feel ashamed of myself for the tears, for isolating myself from family and friends…for forgetting the blessings of life.
For, I am still here and that is what matters.
I am still here.
9 comments:
YOU ARE STILL HERE!
I am so glad, for my own selfish sake---(and not--obviously--because I would wish suffering on you!!!
Oh, Crow, I am so sorry you had such a wretched time of it--I have heard of such ordeals from others too, and crying bitter tears is an entirely appropriate response!
There's this weird contradiction in life when we get to count our blessings AND be miserable too. LOL... Aren't we the lucky species...?
Anyway, I always love when you blog--or leave comments on my blog:
if that's in any way a helpful way to stay in touch, I for one say, go for it!
And may the next year be a bit better!
Martha
I'm so happy to hear from you, I've missed you.
I hope you continue to improve, and persevere.
We're both long in the tooth, but that's as it should be, eh?
Take care, my friend
Mike
Martha, I’m glad you’re here. Here is good. And I hope it gets better by the day.
Elaine Stritch would like a word: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3Xz1TUgdG6A.
Hello Martha. Very good to know you are still here after all of your absolutely crap year. Good too to see that very positive paragraph towards the end of your post. Keep your head up, pesevere and think positively.
My dear wife of 63 years unfortunately did not make it through her ordeals and treatments for pancreatic cancer and died in a local hospice in May this year. Fortunately I was with her at the end. Thank you for your email earlier this year to wish her well.
But life goes on, for all of us - as it should. I wish you well.
Love
Mike (Avus)
Don't forget our blessings too. That you're still around to add to our lives; infrequently, of course, but that's understandable, given what you've gone through. In contrast my flirtations with cancer have all the charm of a non-sexual affair held in the orchard in late May with the expectation that the Democrats will be in power for the next two decades.
Now and then I slip back into Tone Deaf and Works Well of earlier years when comments were lively and long, imagination ran free, and we were all intoxicated with our cleverness. On the times when I went I went too far and you told me to fenestrate off. And then you bounced back, full of argumentative fervour and - from time to time - affection. We were a community then and merely elderly. Now we are old and the Old Reaper's scythe has been busy. Where are you now - Joe, Joe's brother, Ellena? Happy times.
But times can be as happy as we have a predisposition towards happiness. And I am glad you kept things going at your end when there may have been temptations to give in. Remember when I asked for suggestions for donating my Winter Fuel Allowance to worthy causes. And you suggested that school in Ramallah. A reminder that some people had it rather worse than us.
Keep on slugging, Crow, And if you're not feeling up to a home run with bases loaded, always remember the option of a bunt. As you may see, parts of me are still slightly American. If I wasn't on blood thinners I'd allow myself an occasional daydream about 25-cent beers.
The Elaine Stritch link could have been recorded for both of us.
Still here for you, friend.
I too am very glad to know you've recovered.
Happy Spring, from Crow and me :)
Martha, I miss you. XO Francesca
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