My food and fluid intake since Friday afternoon has been minimal. No matter how I try, I cannot bring myself to drink enough water to remain hydrated nor to eat enough food to maintain sufficient strength. To combat dehydration, I’ll ask my oncologist’s staff whether, after my radiation treatment next door, they have time and resources to hook me to a bag of IV saline fluid. It’s not that I simply refuse to eat and drink; it’s that I just cannot seem to force myself to take in more than a small taste at a time—not nearly enough to keep me adequately fueled and hydrated. But I must be doing a little better than before; at least I can sit at my desk and bitch about my current state of weakness, discomfort, and general malaise.
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Today is Monday, December 16, my oldest brother’s wedding anniversary. He is flying to Oregon to see his wife today, who has been away from their home for several weeks for medical tests and planning for breast cancer major surgery, which is scheduled for tomorrow. What an unpleasant way to spend a celebratory anniversary! Cancer seems to have surrounded me in recent years. Three brothers have had to deal with various types of cancers. My father died of lung cancer. My late wife’s sister and my brother’s wife are in the midst of fighting breast cancer. I am being treated for lung cancer that, after five years of clean reports, came back. It seems every time I turn around, someone new in my familial or social sphere is fighting cancer. And, given the advancing age of everyone I know, the number of people diagnosed with cancer will only continue to climb. I hope none of us will be given a terminal diagnosis…but it’s already too late for that. This recurrence of mine is incurable…yet too early to estimate a timeframe for mine to complete its work. It could be years. It could be much sooner. I’m rooting for years; as if cheering myself on is apt to have an impact.
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Personal interest in world affairs seems to have withered; for me. Realistic thoughts that take place in dreamland, too, have apparently been abandoned by my brain. Instead, my sleeping mind seems to focus on breaking random rules and running from the consequences. Last night (sometime between Friday night and this morning), a detailed dream involved intentionally side-swiping a perfectly-restored late-fifties Cadillac, then fleeing its driver. The pursuit soon turned into a chase involving three or four strange people who wanted to recruit me to join their semi-religious cult. I ran from them, thinking I had escaped into a Moroccan-themed apartment in a huge complex, only to discover some of the people after me lived there. I managed to escape from near-capture, but only barely. They were right behind me, crawling between buildings, climbing on and between balconies, and—periodically—confronting them. I managed to convince them that: 1) they had been assigned personal identification numbers and 2) their food intake had to be limited to string and thin twigs from trees. For some reason, my success in leading them on was responsible for my success in eluding capture. Late in the dream, before it dissolved into nothingness, I ran inside a mammoth garbage-truck-wash where fire hoses were aimed at dirty trucks. And then? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. But there was more, earlier. I do not recall exactly what, though.
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I am so damned tired. I need to take a shower, but I’m a little concerned I will have trouble standing for the duration. Wiping the shower down afterward is out of the question. Drying myself is not a guaranteed slam-dunk. Getting dressed is iffy. But I’ll manage.
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Ibogaine causes time, space, light, and sound all to splinter. So does lack of—or too much—sleep.
