flow, etc.

Hi again. I'm a few days off of chemo #2, and before writing anything else, I will tell you that the tumor marker (CA-125) number appears to be in a downward trend. so that is the something i'm holding onto. also hoping it means an ease in symptoms, because yes, they have been kind of brutal. 

i've logged a lot of in-hospital time since receiving chemo #1. i was pretty sick the night after that first (though the doctor says it's the cancer -- a reaction like the one i had was just way too early to be have been caused by the chemo), went to the ER the next day, and then spent the following TWO WEEKS in the hospital. why the captial letters? two weeks in the hospital when docs do not know what they're dealing with feels like an especially long time imo. and lots of trial-and-error meds meant extra fun bathroom times. you get it. 

i've been home a week now, and the days are varied... i had a wee stretch of good ones, and some mixed ones, and well, i guess i'm getting used to them all, not daring to hope yet. i want to tell you i am keeping my spirits up but that would be a lie. i am in an unshockingly foul mood, feeling a bit singled out, envious of anyone i see walking out of a coffee shop and taking a nice, long sip of iced-whatever. that is what i aspire to right now! the person gently twisting open a buttery croissant with all the aroma and whatnot wafting out. iced-whatevers and wafting whatnots at my leisure: a girl can dream.

What about my former steadfast belief in the ebb and the flow, the natural balance of things, the "no matter how rough the ebb there will be, there just has to be, the flow?" cancer blew that to smithereens for sure. Cancer. Big fat dumb deadly cancer. where there is just a lot of ebb on top of ebb on top of ebb and for the life of me i can't tell if the flow is actually coming. i can't sense it or maybe have stopped believing in it a little. the truth is that sometimes, or at least this is how it's felt to me --- it doesn't come. the reality is maybe that it doesn't always come.  

but what about the lowering ca-125?  isn't that a kind of a flow? maybe.  

i'm probably physically the weakest i've been since being a kid right now. i have lost a lot of that kind of weight you don't want to lose, the strength, you know? you look in the mirror and it's ghost-you looking back, the sagging skin and pancake arms and the dark chemo circles. i am the sick looking person i vowed i would never be. so it could follow that i'm also a bit weaker in my belief systems. it could follow that i'm rambling a bit now, so i'll hop off here and rest up and go take some photos of the fists of lilacs appearing in the backyard finally. 

i love you all. keep fingers crossed. xx