isn't she dead already?

i am getting dying fatigue.  i think i feel better today but i feel as if there is usually a time period for dying people that they rally and get all excited about not feeling so terrible and believe whatever the treatment, it must be doing it's job.  false hope? on the road to recovery?  whatever it may be, i've only had 4 painkillers today thus far instead of the requisite 6 by this time of day.  i was able to listen to doug stanhope's podcast and make myself some decent eggs, bacon and toast.  it has been awhile since i've been in the kitchen because i couldn't stand upright, and i was frickin' nauseous.  but today, so far so good.

try to imagine constant debillitating pain, that slowly seeps into your psyche like those red slugs in slither.  so now not only does your body hurt but your mind ain't too healthy either.  because your kinecitazoids are out of whack, sluggishly firing on chemotherapy, narcotics and cannabis and whatever you are able to eat.  which for me hasn't been too bad today.  hot water with lemon, cup of earl grey, eggs scrambled with red pepper and onions and cilantro, sour dough toast.  watched basketball at my pop's house with family and enjoyed one of his famous tacos, and tonight for dinner some leftovers of corned beef, cabbage and potatoes, and broth- a single bite of each was all i could manage.

i corned my own beef last year, for st paddy's day and made soda bread and had all the fixings for my favorite shot, the irish car bomb.  boy what a difference a year makes.

my husband went to trader joe's last week and returned with a pre-packaged/brined corned beef brisket, and i protested, because last year's meal was toot toot my own horn worthy, and i simply wanted to be able to prepare what has become a favorite nostalgic meal for me, because it reminds me of my grandma.

last year i started with a 4lb beef brisket off a bovine that finished magna cum laude in foraging top shelf alfalfa and regurgitating cud.  then i gathered spices and made a brine.  layed the brisket in the brine in the fridge for almost a week, turning and stirring the brisket every couple of days.  then i boiled some homemade chicken broth and put it and brine and brisket in the slow cooker for 4 hours. added parsnips, potatoes and cabbage wedges at the end.  while the soda bread was in the oven our friends the bush's arrived and we carefully assembled the fixings for irish car bombs.

irish car bomb fixings are jamesons, baileys and guinness.  take 2 shotglasses and fill one with jamesons, the other with baileys- stack the full shotglasses on top of the other inside a pint glass.  i prefer to have the baileys on top because it curdles otherwise when you pour the guinness.  open the guinness and carefully pour down the side of the pint glass avoiding pouring directly into the shots.  pour guinness until it almost reaches the top of the baileys shot.  the whiskey will have begun co-mingling with the guinness but don't worry.  now chug-a-lug.  my sister kate turned me onto this shot in a beautiful restaurant bar in bozeman, montana where she was cooking supporting my brother-in-law while he was working on his masters.  so we each shoot the car bomb (it was delicious) and i say "well what does a person do after an irish car bomb?"  kate says "another one".  so we did.  and then returned to their apartment where she had prepared corned beef and all the fixings.  she has always been into food and is really fucking good at it.  i have prepared a lot of her food from her food blog hola jalapeno check it out sometime as she is the real deal.

fast forward to st paddy's day 2016 and the only one doing an irish car bomb was my mom.  hilarious.  she knew it was my favorite drink and she wanted to try it.  so i assembled it and she kept saying "can  i just sip it?"  i poured half shots, which was plenty for her.  i have never seen anyone do a shot that slowly before.  but she did it.  and even though i didn't corn my own beef, my husband recognized both my love for corned beef and cabbage and my limitations these days, and we made it work.

i've been experiencing joy in my day to day lately, and it feels so good.  i've also been experiencing some peace, not just peace of mind but of my surroundings, and peace with those i am close with.  so no i ain't dead yet.  i think for awhile i felt like i wanted to be dead already, there is no particular compass or map to help navigate this end of life stuff.  but i've been working on it and towards it for awhile now, and i am so glad that i have as it is allowing for this time to be peaceful.  and i got to enjoy another leprechaun before sliding on that great rainbow in the sky.

the day after yesterday, which is today aka yesterday update

this morning i popped pain pills and shuffled into the tv room to get the latest on richard simmons.  apparently he has not been seen in public for two years and some well respected investigative journalists (matt lauer) found him at home and talked to him via phone.  no skyped show-pony simms.  just his voice denying his house keeper is not holding him against his will blah blah.  which led me to ponder the reason for his absence (i didn't even know he was gone) but i think he got fat, and a giant tank top covered in bedazzles could blind a person- so he stays put.  and if you are known as a fitness guru and you fat, you do phone interviews.

my mom on her own decided to end her vacation and is en route home.  which makes me feel better.  i guess we all want our mommy sometimes.  

i don't think i am getting better.  hard to tell.  but i can share this much with you, that it feels best when i'm not moving.  perhaps simms would like to come and hang out with me on the couch?  

been watching movies to occasionally escape.  yesterday my husband and his daughter and my dad watched slither:

slither is so fucking disgusting and funny.  in the scene above the blob is actually a woman and she says to the folks that just found her "something is wrong with me".  so great.  never been a particular fan of the hooror genre, but horror that is funny......i guess i'm a fan.  i found it on apple-tv btw just in case you are interested.

i just realized i wrote whore phonetically when i meant horror.  one plus i'm still able to make myself laugh.

yesterday

seriously, what do you do with a day that greets you with paralyzing pain and you are fairly certain the treatment you are on to keep you around for a bit longer doesn't seem to be working?  do you gobble pain killers and shuffle into the tv room and see what that wacky al roker is up to?  or do you cry out of fear and pain and sadness until you pass out?  or do you crumple into your spouse's arms and scare the shit out of him and he stays home from work to take care of you?

mostly you just want the pain to go away, so you manage the pain.  as soon as the pain of the prevailing winds of cancer are calmed, now you can see straight, and perhaps even think straight. for now.  you are left with the fact that this is probably how it is going to go down, and i've known about it, hell i've written about it, i've talked about it.  but i'm probably just like a lot of people who have said to me "you actually think you are going to die?" because they doubted my sincerity, or thought i was crying wolf or most likely wish to be spared from talk like that.

even though i've been talking about my own death for awhile it is still a topic both my parents have a hard time finding the right vocabulary for.  they both responded to me yesterday like they had a bad connection on the phone, and were having difficulty hearing me.  i had to tell my mom that our trip to central america will not be happening, and she said "well if it isn't central america we will find another place to go."  which doesn't fit the conversation.  then my mom said, " should i come home?"  she's out of town, and apparently wont be returning for another two weeks, unless i say i need her.

i don't know how i'm supposed to say it more clearly but i just shared with her that i didn't think the treatment was working and that the pain is excruciating and that i could barely walk.  now on top of all that i'm supposed to say "mom cut your vacation short because i'm dying"?  hasn't that been implied?  see what i mean by a bad connection.

i don't really need her here.  it just confirms my belief that if you live in denial then you have a hard time recognizing reality when it surfaces.

but to be honest even though i have been talking about dying from cancer, it doesn't exclude me from the next week club- death is nigh, but not until next week.  shit i've been living with this since 2009, and i've known in my gut it will get me, but when it knocked at my door yesterday i got really scared.

but the good news is i think the chemo/treatment may be working?  a little?  i'm scheduled for every three weeks a cocktail of opdiva/yervoy administered via iv.  so maybe a little more time.  to spend with my mom.  wink wink.