The world is spinning around me, the top and bottom halves and right and left spheres moving in opposite directions. Connections between its quadrants—top and left…bottom and right…left and bottom…right and top—are chaotically tangled in perfect harmony. Sound can be seen and not heard; blindness is the sole illumination in the unbalanced symmetry between fact and fiction. An obvious pattern in the pandemonium reveals nothing but raw disorder. Yet in this twisted nest of impossibly complex knots of frayed rope and malevolent live electrical wire, we seek comfort. Our lives are rigidly ordered in tumultuous disarray. This, we surmise, must be sanity. And serenity is a sickness to be cured. So we employ governments to starve citizens into prosperity. We launch economic warfare in the name of peace. Because information and knowledge are so vast and overwhelming to the “common folk,” we allow our elected autocrats—our oppressors of choice—to limit our access to ideas. We permit them to change the definition of truth and falsehood at will; sometimes reversing them in mid-sentence. When the actions of our chosen despots conflict with our principles, we condemn the tyrants and, in defiance, promptly imitate their behaviors. Someone once said it, and I believe it to be true: “We’re all perfect, but we could use a little work.”
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Sharing one’s secrets is a temptation that’s difficult to avoid, but one that can be deadly dangerous. Information is both a beautiful tool and a monstrous weapon…simultaneously, at times. Serial killers who proudly leave complex clues about their identities might wonder how they ended up on a gurney in an execution chamber, a needle ready to deliver a final measure of vengeance. The detectives who unraveled the clues, asked by a prison official to view the killers’ last living moments, might consider the invitation to be a supreme form of flattery. The “faithful husband” who invites his secretary to take her vacation at the same time he takes a “business trip” can be stunned to find his wife and his secretary waiting for him in his hotel room at his destination. The doctor who over-prescribes opioids in return for a portion of the “take” should not be taken by surprise when her patient agrees to testify against her in a plea arrangement. A housewife—who shares with her best friend suspicions that her husband is having an affair—probably does not realize she may have just launched a murder plot between two paramours. Trust can be so very hard to develop; but it can be the only thing keeping one sane. Yet it can be lost in an instant, triggering a set of circumstances that change the landscape of one’s life. “Innocent bystanders” can become victims of misplaced trust, just as can the parties to undeserved trust. Somewhere along trust’s pendulum swing, its “bob” can become a guillotine’s blade.
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For the past week or two, I’ve been wondering whether the pains I’ve been feeling (and for which I am being treated) are temporary. Or, I wonder, are they likely to continue and simply get worse as time goes by? Inasmuch as no one seems certain what’s causing them, no one is prepared to give me an answer. But the vagueness I sense in the replies I get to my questions suggests to me the latter scenario may be likely. My retiring primary care doctor suggested, during a visit to this officer earlier this week, the problems might be connected to issues with my gall bladder…and that addressing those problems (either by “fixing” the problem or removing the offending organ) might cure the pain. I did not see my oncologist yesterday (only the nurse practitioner), but I hope to see her next week. If so, I will ask her for her opinion about my primary care doctor’s thoughts. Today, I will be visited by a representative of Arkansas Hospice, who will discuss with me the palliative care services the organization offers (as I have written before, I’m not ready for hospice). Minimizing pain and discomfort while enabling me to live as “normal” a life as possible would be my objective. I do not want to be tethered to pain meds, etc. that would effectively make me permanently stuck at home. God, this is getting to be so damn old! The recurrence of my lung cancer was found around the end of the year in 2023. At what point, I wonder, do the limitations on my daily life reach the point where I do not want to keep dealing with them? I am not there yet; I know that. But is that a stage of the evolution of this experience that I can expect “soon?” And what, by the way, is “soon?” Nobody knows.
Yesterday, again, the nurse practitioner decided not to administer chemo—only IV fluids and injections to address nausea and to protect bone density. The last time I had a chemo treatment was July 2. I wonder what effect, if any, skipping several treatments might have on me. I will ask next week…if I remember.
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My weight is down to 153 pounds or thereabouts, around 100 pounds below my maximum a few years ago. The nurse practitioner (and various others) emphasize the need for me to eat more protein-rich food and more food, in general. No one wants to read about these ongoing issues; I mention them here, though, as a record of what’s going on during the course of my cancer experience. Not that this record will have any significant value. As much as anything else, keeping a record seems both like a function I can perform and one that has “potential” (but not much) value.
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My sister-in-law lost both of her pets…a cat and a dog…within the past week. What a difficult set of circumstances to face. Both of them were old and ill and it’s good that they are out of their miseries…but to have them both go within just days of each other has to be extremely tough to take. Ach! Living isn’t easy; death adds emphasis to that unfortunate reality.
