Why Didn't I Realize Sooner?

Why didn't I realize sooner I was sick? I had been tired the better part of a year. I have two more chemos left. I am still exhausted. I admire people who can work and keep going. I am worried they will not be able to help me after the chemo. I talked to someone online who has been through bone marrow. I need to find out percentage of cancer gone.

Poetry doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot right now. I hurt every single day. I can't go on not knowing. If I knew I was going to get the transplant, then there would be some sense of purpose. My appetite is still not the greatest and I still ache. I'm tired. I'm tired of being sick. I don't want to complain. Part of the reason why I keep this blog is to just get out the sorrow without burdening people. I've done that enough already.

I feel like I am on the outside looking in at other's lives. I live on pain killers and hope. Once the hope of a tranplant is gone, I don't know. I don't know at all. Thank God for writing. Thank God for the "thing with feathers" as Emily Dickinson says. The bittersweet part of this is I wish they had found the cancer sooner. Both of my sisters are a match. The next month or two will tell the tale. I am so lonely. If the doctor had pursued it sooner, if I had pursued it sooner....

The nurse tells me I will be better after the chemo. The doctors at Fox Chase look at it as a new cancer so they don't want to do a bone marrow unless absolutely necessary. The lymphoma is all over. I blamed myself about the birth control but the cancer was already starting---started the pills in March and I was already anemic by May or June of last year. When I had the stomach flu last May, I don't doubt it was something else starting inside of me.

Tonight, Joe and Iread at Andrea's bookstore. I wish poetry got me stirred up. It doesn't. I worry about what is going to happen. I don't want to end up like this woman in the chemo room. She is dying. For all intents and purposes, I am dying and they are just using this as "pallative" care to prolong and make my life "easier". If that is the case, I would not have desired this treatment at all. I wish I was more productive in my everyday. I have trouble concentrating with reading and writing: two things I love. I find this journalling comes much easier.

I want to find joy. I do, at night before bed, giving Joe a hug, and snuggling. I am going to UPenn and Strong Memorial for more "opinions". I am so fearful because I know what I am facing is not good at all. I should get going here....I just need prayer. I isolate myself even from Joe lately, except for at night.... Yesterday, I went to the Eucharistic Chapel and broke down. I feel like Jesus in the garden everyday of my life now.