commercial boredom and hell

It's hard to imagine the boredom day after day, compounded by the cold, and the requirements of being a professional patient.  It is a grind without relief.  As I watch TV it gets even worse, bombarded by hours of advertisements all health-related.  Drugs, durable medical supplies, law suits over health issues, and don't forget those ads trying to be inspiring from Cancer Centers of America.  I wonder how they all afford the ads, what it is all costing us financially and as a society, as I knit and crochet and my mind wanders.  Do they invent these terms and diseases?  Do we really need the handicane and the hurrycane? It is so exhausting in their lack of creativity and the pounding impression that we are all sick and need this equipment, medication or have been harmed by something so we need relief.  Is this what Dante meant - is it hell or merely purgatory? Definitely not heaven.

Subversive knitting

Sometimes we all think about our purpose in life.  Why am I here?  When I'm dead will anyone remember me?  Like everyone I ask these questions in my mind and consider my life.  In many ways it isn't the life I had planned, but it has been satisfying nonetheless.  Certainly since attending law school and working in the legal services clinic, I started a career of helping others with legal issues.  Most of my cases either private or public sector involved helping people who were being harmed by the system or by others, victims, sometimes of bullies (domestic violence, parental violence, hate crimes) or even insurance companies. ( I am someone who always roots for the under-dog and thoroughly despises bullies).  I know that in 22 years of working in the legal field I made a difference in people's lives.  As I always say, my life is really 2 degrees of separation, not six, knowing people who know people, and helping people who help people.  It is certainly true of my more than 25 years in recovery, as I help people who help others and so on.  People tell me that I am inspiring but truly I would rather be healthy than be so inspiring.  I think it is also true of my knitting, crocheting, needlepointing, all the work I've done over the years since I learned, as I made baby blankets, and big blankets, finished needlepoint started by others, or the sisterhood of the traveling scarf, these items have transited into people's lives.  Maybe they keep them.  Maybe they regift them.  Maybe they wear them or use them.  Maybe they sit in a closet or drawer.  But the reality is that these items are all over the world and in people's lives.  It isn't my intention to be subversive, but to spread happy and color.  But maybe it becomes subversive over time, like the concept of paying it forward.  My name and person will no longer be attached to the scarf or blanket, but it will still spread happy and bring color to people who never knew me, leaving a lasting mark around the world.

some new numbers

26 chemo finished in 19 months.    in the last month 2 baby blankets and 2 men's scarves finished.  

that sums up my life, blood, chemo, hospitals and knitting.  pathetic but better than the alternative.

Hibernation view

Each winter for years I have wanted to hibernate like a bear, stay endlessly in flannel sheets and not go out unless necessary.  Never thought I would ever have the opportunity but the combination of cancer, chemo and cold is making it possible this year.  I am fortunate to have a beautiful view from my bedroom and bed into the woods, watching the colors and scenery change along with the wildlife.  Yesterday in the snow was a healthy red fox bounding and playing, perhaps chasing dinner.  The day before it was a large majestic red-tailed hawk with its fresh-killed meal, probably a squirrel, sitting on the ground, then flying off carrying its bloody feast.

Wishing I could fly away too, from cancer and chemo to a fresh start.

ICING DEPRESSION

There are different types of depression. Situational. Clinical.  Manic.  Mine just relates to ice and icing and is as incurable as ovarian cancer.  Knowing that Sunday I have to start the icing routine of the professional patient on doxil, two and three times a day with my hands and feet on ice packs.  It is truly a catch 22.  If doxil stops working and I get to stop icing, then it means my options to stay alive are much more limited.  But if Doxil continues to work then I have to continue the icing.  In the summer it was somewhat refreshing, but in the polar vortex aftermath I am truly dreading it, my eighth treatment with my hands and feet skin peeling, my gums aching, ready to kill for a cup of steaming hot coffee or chocolate.  Too frustrating to describe, so instead I am in icing depression.