TheBanyanTree: I don't want this

[Julie Anna Teague]

I don't want this to turn into a cancer diary. But it has a way of
consuming one's thoughts. How can anything else seem significant? My knee
hurt when I took a jog last night, and my job has been incredibly
stressful this week, and while those would be things I'd bring up in
conversation a few weeks ago, they are nothing now, compared to the
cancer. Small talk takes on all kinds of new connotations. "I'm going to
clean out the closet this weekend," means, between the lines, "I am
preparing for the time when you will live here, when you are sick". "What
did you have for lunch today?" takes on overtones of extreme watchfulness.

This first stage of dealing with things is most strange. L says, "I feel
exactly the same as I did before. The only difference is that I know I
have cancer. " One day we are wildly optimistic and the next we are
completely freaking out. I pointed out to him, though, that absolutely
nothing changed between the moment of optimism and the moment of
pessimism, except the churnings of our minds.

In doing more research today, I read something about a 75% survival rate,
under the best of circumstances. That simply is not good enough, damn it!
I want some guarantees here. Start the chemo and damn the torpedos, full
speed ahead. And when L starts looking at alternative therapies and
talking about how maybe he won't do the chemo, I just flip on him. I am so
angry at the thought of him not doing everything, every possible thing,
that can be done. I tell him there's a world of difference between
scientific and anecdotal evidence of "cures". I am mad in the most selfish
fashion, and it is ugly. Just emotions to work through as we chug on. 

Julie