I'm currently sitting in The Chair, getting a liter of IV fluids, because I had the pleasure of enduring diarrhea about 15 times over the course of a 24 hour period earlier this week.
I'm sitting here, and I'm crying. I couldn't tell you why. I know I've cried while sitting in this chair before. Today it feels different. I'm tired. I turned off my alarm and accidentally fell back asleep, then woke up again 20 minutes later to rush out the door. I have no makeup on, so I probably sort of look like a cancer patient today, what with my barely-there eyebrows. I think my nurse can tell I'm exhausted. After she started my IV, she dimmed my lights for me, got me blankets, and closed the curtains around my nook in the infusion room. Now I'm listening to Bon Iver, crying. I know that I don't really need an excuse to explain my tears. I just feel like the weight of the world is bearing down on my shoulders, and I'm ready for a reprieve. I'm crying because I'm alone. Because this sucks that I'm even here. I could list so many more reasons to explain my tears, but I won't. Instead, I'm just going to sit here in my little temporary cocoon, accept the pain I'm feeling, let myself cry as much as I need to, and then when the bag of fluids is done, I will try to move past these feelings.
The nurse asked when my last chemo was. She congratulated me when I said it was last week. I wish I could be as happy and excited about this milestone as other people are for me. Not many people understand my anxiety and fear about it except for the friends I've met along the way that have gone through it as well.
You know how sometimes we have to let other people be angry for us because we can't be angry ourselves (but the anger does eventually come)? I think excitement about the end of chemo is like that for you. You're not in a place to be excited - so let everyone else do it for you, and know that the excitement will arrive, and it's better late than never.
ReplyDeleteAnd you're doing great. Crying is healing beyond all reason, in many ways. Here's to summer. And to you. xo, ao
Whitney - holding your hand right now. You don't have to explain. I get it.
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