25. Some Truth Telling
Christmas. Check.
Birthday. Check.
New Year’s Eve and Day. Check. Check.
Now, what?
I’ve been so focused on living long enough to enjoy those lasts that I didn’t put any thought into what comes next. That realization hit hard early New Year’s Day.
“What do I focus on now that the holiday milestones I set have come and gone? Do I choose Valentine’s Day in February as my next wanna-see, or stretch beyond that to the first day of spring in March, or should I swing big and go for Opening Day of baseball in April? ……. Or do I just sit back and wait for the telltale signs — the ones that announce my decline and then pick a day or week or month that seems doable – reachable?”
Mr. Wonderful had no response as he headed to the kitchen to plug in the percolator, so the diehard Red Sox fan that I am, sat her ass in the super-de-duper recliner and went it alone on that ramble. I chose Opening Day as my new goal — the date I want to reach.
I immediately searched the web to see what date I was aiming for, “March 31st? What the eff? Hey, Tim, I thought MLB Opening Day was always in April. It’s March 31st this year.”
He poked his head into the living room, “It’s only one day earlier.”
“Only one day? Only one day? What if it was the only day you had left?”
Silence.
And then a quiet mumble on his way back to the kitchen, “This might be the only day I have left.”
“I heard that.”
Silence.
And then my rant. “Is it too much to ask that Opening Day be in April — like it’s always been? Really, is that too much to ask?”
He appeared back in the doorway and moved toward me.
I shook my head, “I’m doing math.”
He turned and left, “Oh, Jesus, help me.”
My ‘doing math’ was NEVER a good idea. Those who know me well know I’m about as good at ciphering numbers as the dimwitted sod, Jethro Bodine, was on the classic television show Beverly Hillbillies. Still, I needed to know how many days there were between January 1st and March 31st, and the only way to know was to do some goesintas. “Nope. I’ll count the days,” I mumbled. I searched the table to my left and the one to my right for my phone, but came up empty — why? — is a very good question. I’m a woman stuck on a recliner in the middle of a living room much like Tom Hanks was stuck on an island in the middle of some body of water. Vastly different people — vastly different circumstances. But, like me, Tom couldn’t find his cell phone, or maybe he did and he couldn’t find his charger, or maybe he had that, but he couldn’t find an electrical outlet. I really don’t know if he even looked for any of those things — maybe he just looked for the ball, I think he named it Wilson. “Hey, Tim, what did Tom Hanks name his ball in that movie when he’s shipwrecked?”
“Cast Away.”
“Didn’t ask what the movie was called, I asked about the ball. Could you please answer the question I asked?” I hissed.
“Wilson,” he groaned.
“Huh, I remembered Tom Hanks was stuck on an island in a movie, but remember Alva — nope. See how things work these days? It isn’t pretty.”
Anyway, my phone was MIA and I didn’t feel like asking Mr. Wonderful to head a search party, so I did what I could to figure some shit out. By the time I finished the whole, “Thirty days has September, April, June and November, all the rest have thirty-one except February,” ditty — I was exhausted and elated that I remembered the entire rhyme. Then I had a little pissy-fit that February only has twenty-eight days and MLB starts in March. “Right out of the gate, I’m screwed out of a few days,” I hissed to no one.
I pondered my timeframe until Tim brought me my coffee. “You’ve been talking to yourself.”
“Uh huh.”
“And?”
“I’ve decided I’m swinging big. I’m going for Opening Day.”
“Sounds good,” he reached into the pocket of his robe and gave me a surprise baggie of Figgie cookies. “Happy New Year. I came down around midnight, but you were sleeping.”
“I was Xanaxing.”
He laughed. Mr. Wonderful has a great laugh, it’s one of the things I love most about him. We spent a few minutes in silence, then spent a couple searching for my phone that started making some odd, muffled chirping noise. Apparently, I was sitting on the device. How it got between my posterior and the comfy cushion I’ve been perched upon for weeks is anyone’s guess.
Once in my hand, the sucker blew up with text messages surrounded by floating balloons, popping champagne corks, and bursting fireworks — all meant to celebrate my ‘success’ at living until the New Year.
I took pride in the accomplishment though you know, and I know, that the only contribution to the Life and Death game I’m playing is sitting on my ass in the dugout. (I appear to be pushing into a baseball analogy or metaphor, so let’s see what happens).
Side note and update about my memory issues: I struggled with writing the book jacket for Alva, the last book in my Pulling Threads series. Nancy helped out by sending over a quasi-blurb-book-review that easily could have been used on the back cover, but after reading the synopsis I remembered enough about the story that I decided to use her framework and take a whack at writing the blurb.
Every writer has their own voice and I really wanted my voice to finish out the series I’d worked on for years. I felt compelled to try, and I feel tremendous pride having done the work, aided of course by Nancy’s prompts.
The reason I mention the memory-slip-and-slide is because I’m mixing up things that I know I know, like the difference between a metaphor and an analogy. For some reason, I’m confusing the two, and I am sooooo tired of checking their definitions that I’m gonna just wing it. So, if you see that I’ve taken a swing and a miss by using analogy when it should be metaphor, please just tsk, tsk, tsk it away. And when I skip a word or shift a tense in a sentence, please just add them in or switch them up.
Guru Jessica has helped with some grammatical housekeeping, but when I feel the need to rush a post we concentrate on getting it up, and we’ve put striving for an A+ in spelling and punctuation aside. Amazingly, I’m okay with a bit of uncleanliness in my writing which is sooooo not like me.
Generally speaking, I am a pain in the ass perfectionist — now, I’m not worried about picayune bullshit (although I just found 5 misspellings of a main character’s name in my Ashore on Stony Beach book that caused a slight rise in blood pressure). Normally, that would have sent me into a bit of a snit because my books are read and reread and reread several times for accuracy during the pre-publication process. Don’t know how the snafu happened — don’t care, either. Pssssst. I suspect pushing two books through a window of two weeks rather than the two months each would normally take had something to do with it. I guess I’ve finally arrived at that place where I don’t sweat the small stuff and the Lachlan v Lacklan oversight is soooo not worrisome now. I kinda like this new phase in life.
Okay, back to the blog. The month of March has circled through my head on a few occasions. I know in my heart of hearts that I have NOTHING to do with the date of my death, but I have a lot of time on my hands, and so I fill it in odd ways.
Like when I take a bathroom break from my sitting, I do stuff in there I’m not supposed to do — like some light housekeeping and staring out the window at the now bare trees in the backwoods.
Do not fink me out to hospice patrol!
Please! I don’t do much while I’m in there — a little light dusting of the linen cabinet, a little straightening of the medicine cabinet, and a little Lysol-wiping of the sink. I’m careful to wash my hands with Spring Fresh pump soap to hide the telltale smell of bleach before I return to my comfy leather prison.
While I’m upright, I spend some time looking at myself in the mirror. Aside from profound sadness in my eyes (sometimes), nothing has changed. I don’t look sick — I know I am dying, but I’ve been feeling pretty good lately. I’ve had pain, but I’ve managed it well with Tramadol. I’ve had lots of nausea, but I’ve managed it well with Zofran. I’ve had increased frequency and severity of headaches and jaw pain, but I’ve managed them with the combo of Tramadol and Tylenol.
Apparently, now that I’m playing in the big leagues, I’ve become addicted to pain meds and shit. You’d be surprised how easy it is to do. I have a whole new understanding of what it’s like to be injured and benched when all you want to do is play the game.
I digress. Again.
I truly believe that barring a curve ball bone break, or stroke, or some other catastrophic event, I’ll make it to Opening Day. I am always mindful that my cancer is in an advanced stage and is very aggressive, and my game may be called early, but if I’m lucky, I might go into extra innings. I’m gonna be as formidable an opponent in this game of Life and Death as I can be.
Now.
Having said that, there are some things I need to get off my chest. I have been completely truthful in my writings — but I realize that I haven’t been totally forthcoming. Case in point: I have heard from so many people that my blogs have become an important part of their lives — especially for friends and family who want to know how I’m feeling but don’t want to overwhelm me with calls requiring me to say the same things over and over and over again. I’ve also heard my blogs have been well received by people I don’t know, some who are facing similar health challenges, and may be in the care of hospice.
I admit that I began writing the blog about my journey because I need to write, and I just could not embark on writing a novel when I knew I wouldn’t finish it. So while the blog started as a self-serving exercise, it has turned into so much more, and that is so wonderful.
The people who have been texting, emailing, and calling with their thoughts on my journey have lifted me on more than one occasion. The sounds of my cell chirping, dinging, and ringing have put an immediate end to whatever feeling I was working through, or thought I was torturing myself with, or question I was asking that I knew full-well had no answer.
With remarkable consistency, the callers have mentioned and marveled at how strong I am. Many have said they’d be rolled in a ball in the corner in a state of hysterics if they’d been handed my set of circumstances.
In all honesty, that’s where I want to be sometimes, but I know me — if I allow myself to go there, I won’t be able to pull myself up. That’s the reason I’m facing the end of my life with as much grit as I can muster. Truth be told, there’s little else I can do. I sure as hell don’t want my family and friends to carry the extra burden of a morose or bitchy Sheryll on top of their already heavy load.
Believe me when I tell you, there have been times throughout this ordeal when I’ve been a big old baby. Some in my inner circle might even say I’ve been a petulant brat. (Well, they’d say it to one another — not to me!). And they’d be absolutely justified in describing me that way — especially when it comes to my aversion to, or more accurately stated, my irrational fear of medical machinery that allows a peek into the human body.
Irrational fear on display: I took the news that I had metastatic breast cancer of the bones way more calmly than when I heard the acronyms MRI, CT and PET scan as part of my diagnostic future.
Just typing that sentence has put me into a tailspin, so I’m going to stop this blog, go chit-chat with Tim, and get my accelerated heartbeat under control. And then, I’ll illustrate my pissy-ass-pain-in-the-ass-self in my next blog.