Chemo Resumes Tomorrow

It’s 3 am or so.
I haven’t looked at the clock.
I’ve been awake for awhile.

Why am I awake?
I examine my feelings.
There’s something...
not exactly Scared,
more like a low-lying Dread.

A new feeling.
A knot at the top of my stomach.
It's been quickening for days.
Making me feel either ravenous,
or too full.

It’s been four weeks
since I sat in the blue plastic recliner,
the poison seeping slowly into my arm.

Only bad things can happen
by beginning this again.
I am weak,
exhausted much of the time,
I strain to climb the stairs from the yard.

My thin hair is hanging on
by threads,
ready to drop off at the least disturbance.
Eyelashes are gone, eyebrows thin.
Hairless arms and legs, like an alien.

Friends say you look great.
Your eyes still sparkle,
your energy is good.
It’s a scam I inadvertently perpetuate.
It’s really their energy I slurp.

When I go home,
and am alone,
I drop into a shallow pit.
Not all that deep.
I can climb out when necessary
and go to the grocery store as though
nothing were wrong.
But I’d rather not.

In the dark of the night,
here’s what I dread.
I dread that I will not recover
from yet another assault on this body.

In the morning, the dread is gone.
But it’s tracks remain.
I get into the car to drive to treatment,
I remind myself that I am NOT my body.
I am more. I am spirit,
pure and eternal.

Morning Despair

I open my eyes these mornings,
And despair hits me like a slap in the chest.
Buddy hears me stir and stands by the bed
wagging his tail and coaxing me to get up.
I pull the covers over my head
until it passes.
Until Buddy starts whining and
I am too bored with myself
to lie there any longer.

I get up, turn on the heat,
put on the tea kettle.
Buddy follows on my heels,
wiggles at the kitchen door,
trying to get my attention.
He wants me to walk out with him
to get the paper,
meet the little boxer, Lulu,
and walk down the road.
It is too cold.
Later, I tell him

I get my tea and sit in the chair by the window.
Buddy jumps in my lap for a little snuggle,
then lies at my feet to wait.
It’s too cold for the birds.
They are nowhere in sight.
I close my eyes and try to meditate.
Until I am too bored with myself
to sit there any longer.

The despair lifts in unison
with the fog on the lake.
If the sun breaks through,
it’s faster.
And the day goes on.

Happy New Year

I want to report that I had a wonderful Christmas but I apparently pushed the health envelope. After driving to and from Dallas for Christmas (Son, Tim is the happiest new stepdad in the land, by the way, and they are expecting another baby in July!),I decided I needed to fly to Phoenix over New Years to see my cousin Dorothy who is 97. She had fallen and cut her head and was in a rehab center (shes still working on recovering from a recent stroke). So, I picked up a Senior fare last minute on Southwest and flew down on Friday morning.
I drove down to Green Valley (south of Tucson) to see friends who have bought a house there and moved from the Olympic peninsula. I spent the night with them and then Saturday drove up to Sun City.
Dorothy was not at the rehab center where I had talked to her last, and I found her in the hospital with fluid in her lungs. We had some very sweet time together, probably our last. I came home speechless, though, with a terrible case of laryngitis.
Good news is that I had a PET scan last week, which revealed that all the tumorous infiltration is gone except for one spot above my collarbone. I am grateful that I have responded really well and quickly. I will have about 2-3 more months of treatment. I was supposed to have chemo last Tuesday, after I returned from Phoenix, but my doctor sent me down for a chest XRay and sent me home to rest and take antibiotics. I begin chemo again this Wednesday.
Blessings to you all for a very Happy New Year. Love, Ann (Ana)

Dorothy

Dorothy

I search the frail figure in the white bed
for a glimpse of Dorothy.
The woman I’ve known my whole life.
The one with the loving eyes and sly smile,
as though she holds a secret.

The one vital and strong and bossy,
Who insisted on cooking for me when I visited,
(She didn’t want anyone else messing around in her kitchen.)
And making sure my bed and bathroom were just right.
Even though she was 90 something.

Now, her fuzzy white hair forms a halo
around her thin face.
She asks “Who’s there?”
I have surprised her with this quick trip to Phoenix.
She doesn’t see well.
I am hoarse and she can’t recognize my voice.
But I tease her and say “You have to guess.”
In just a moment, her eyes fill up and she says
“Annie, girl, I thought I’d never see you again.”

“That’s why I’m here. I can’t let that happen.”
She pats her bed and I sit.
I notice the chalkboard on her wall.
It says Dorothy McGregor, 97 years old.
How did she get so old, this ageless woman?

When I was just 14, and I zoomed my little aluminum boat,
the one with the 25hp Johnson,
across the lake to her house.
I’d climb the steps to her patio
to find her and Mac.
Mac who shared the same twinkle in his eye
and half-smile.

I’d plop my skinny frame down in an aluminum chair,
the kind with with plastic webbing,
swing my skinny legs, and tell them all.
Everything I was doing, what I thought
What I felt.

They were NOT my parents and I could shock them.
If I wanted. And they would laugh.
Mac would tease me.
Dorothy would just smile
and get me a cold drink or a cookie.

Dorothy relives older times,
1925,
My mother. Marjorie, was the older cousin of the two.
Dorothy told me, as she had told me
time and time again,
How she sat on my mothers bed,
filled with admiration,
as she watched Marjorie get ready for a date.
Watched her pull on her heavy stockings
and knot them at the top,
Fix her hair and put color on her cheeks.
“I wanted to be just like her.”

Later she tells me,
“I didn’t want it to be like this at the end,”
I wanted to slip out quietly in the night.”

“What do you think it will be like?
she asks.
“I think it will be very good,”
I say slowly, emphasizing each word.
“I think Mac is busy getting ready for me.”
She says.
“I bet he is. He will be so happy to see you.”

In our last sweet hours together,
I whisper in her ear,
Her fuzzy hair tickles my lips.
”I love you. I want to be sure you know
how important you have been in my life.”
The glimmer lights up her eyes,
and the sly smile stretches across her lips,
As though she knows a secret.