thoughts on posts

I have come to a mature understanding that I play host to an incurable and terminal disease. I have accepted my disease with grace and dignity, shedding a few tears, but not many along this most challenging journey.

I have also come to the understanding that although I am terminal, I am not the type of person, nor ever was, that will not fight the good fight, keep his armor polished and the sword very near and ready to use in less than a moments notice. There have been ups and downs and some changes but throughout I have remained true to myself and this is something I was lacking pre-diagnosis. It always was a part of me, my thoughts, my desires. I now have a shortened purpose to express them fully and faithfully and beyond my expectations for I have learned expectations cause hurt and less is more...

I still think and wonder and sometimes wish in my determination to LIVE my life and if I am able to teach another just a little something along the way, then I am successful and feel whole. Each time I write it is a thought or a scenario that has played or is currently playing in my life. The post may be over, but the challenges before me remain and the thinking continues for another moment, another hour and hopefully, another day.

fentynl

This morning I started Fentynl, in place of Morphine LA and the purpose, I hear a distant drumroll, is to TRY, with the emphasis on the T the R and especially the Y to lessen the sea saw, completely out of balance, up one minute and down the next, to balance out my symptoms so that my body will be faked into believing that it is functioning normally, what ever normal might be. This process in itself is an experiment and given that the dosage this time is correct, I am hoping that the effect will be less symptoms over a longer period of time, give or take every seventy-two hours instead of every four.

So, the initial dose has me lethargic and sleepy, to be expected, so I lay and think, which sometimes is detrimental to a mind that simply does not know how to turn off anyway.

borrowed clocks

I have become the unfortunate recipient of migraine headaches, cluster headaches or which ever you prefer to call them. I just know by merely saying the word the pounding deepens to a deafening low pitch and the lights glitter and dance, multi colored, in front of my eyes, side to side only to disappear for a short while before the dance resumes.

Worse than the headaches themselves is the amount of time that has been wasted, me altering my schedule to combat the pain, the nausea, the irritability, just the miserable side effects brought on by headaches unknown. The medicine that has been tried leaves me with little relief and since I never have been prone to headaches in the past that I can recall, the adjustment period has been tolerated with less than a smile on my face and without a kind word. I merely crawl back inward and try to avoid that which is before me and watch as the borrowed clocks continue to tick and another day passes.

tuesday 22.08

In my thought process I have become aware, so very aware of how constant a terminal illness can be. The initial shock and awe having worn its welcome, it now becomes an issue, serious, that I deal with in my everyday, similar to brushing my teeth, showering, dressing, taking out the garbage and paying attention to the dog and sometimes, not always, my immediate surroundings. Once, a little over one hundred and fifty days ago, it was not a thought, not a question, not a possibility. Terminals were at airports and I had no plans to fly anywhere fast.

Today it is a reality that like any reality, exists and is dealt with and the constant reminders of aides and nurses and conversations relating to how I feel are just expected, often anticipated and systematically, mostly, answered so that I can move on to something different all the while the thought of terminal sits in a cold space down deep, unwelcomed, taking up desirable space from other things and other emotions that remain hidden and dormant from site from all others except me. My thinking process is more profound, making my thoughts wiser and my knowledge greater and my respect for the simplicity of living and breathing inspirational and sometimes, more often than not, challenging.