What I learned from dying; The lull

I’m a little more than a month into my little cancer journey, and now that the initial maelstrom is over I’ve reached a bit of a lull. It’s not relaxing and it doesn’t feel much like a break, but more like an in-between, sort of a wait and see.

Each day has become a ritual of medicines, feeding machines and wondering how I could be so tired when I haven’t done anything. It can make for some boring days and probably some boring columns, perhaps like this one, and I can’t just keep posing for pictures with my nephew each week.
But just like a story of great love or success, a story of struggle has ups and downs, with the lull serving as a demarcation to keep them neatly apart. And since this column is meant to tell the story of my battle with cancer, I can’t very well leave out times like these.

At this point a lot of things are, for a lack of a better word, known. Word of my cancer has gotten to most everyone who would be interested in hearing it. I know that I’ll be getting chemotherapy every other week for the foreseeable future. Things that needed to be said have been said.

In the beginning it was nonstop questions that seemed to have no answers, nonstop worries about what’s next, nonstop stress about how I’ll pay for all of this, nonstop advice from others and nonstop doctor visits.
It’s nice to not have all of that now. I know what the treatment plan is and I’m a little more prepared for how it affects me. I know who to call when I have questions, and I know what each day will look like and where I’ll be spending my time.
Of course the amount of things I don’t know are plenty.

I still don’t know how many chemo treatments I’ll be getting. I don’t know how I’m supposed to pay for the huge bills that are starting to arrive, although donations from the community have been incredible and forever appreciated, even if I feel like a beggar. I still don’t know if I’ll ever be able to eat like a normal person again.
And I don’t really even know if I’m slowly getting better or slowly dying.
But I’m optimistic.

I just renewed my annual membership in a national car club and I keep buying food at the grocery even though I haven’t been able to successfully eat much of anything for months. Eventually I will though, surely.

After my fourth round of chemo I will get another CT scan and that will tell whether the treatments are working or not. That looms very, very large on the horizon but for now I’m choosing to keep my focus on what’s in front of me, even if it’s boring.

By Dave Taylor
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