Many of you saw me right after my cancer diagnosis when I was an artesian well of tears...that hasn't changed much it's just that I can "control" it some and prefer, macho dude that I am, to cry alone.
I've talked, hopefully candidly about my reaction to the diagnosis and how I just went home and holed up primarily in my bedroom and cried, yelled, fought with myself, argued with God, argued with Rosie and asked God to do something...and He did.
I was diagnosed on a Wednesday, I believe, and sequestered myself for the next two days and after a particular nasty rant I stepped outside onto the little patio off my bedroom and everything changed...that's when, instantly, the thought(s) were planted in me that:
- Let's make this an Adventure
- Let's not let this go to waste
I still don't know what the "not letting this go to waste" looks like, but I'm clinging to what my friend Brad told me after my heat surgery in '99 when I was having a different sort of melt down that, "It just might be any of your dang business and you might not even know know when it (and "it" was something similar but yet different) happens, so quit worrying about it and just go about your business."
At that moment on the patio things changed and my attitude, for the most part, about having cancer changed and I think, again for the most part, that my attitude about this whole thing has been positive.
I've had my down times, but for the most part I think I'm dealing with this okay.
Anywho, back to "emotions"...
My brother Kevin came out and stayed with me for the first week I was in the hospital, and I didn't know what a blessing that was until late last night when I sorta put things together.
Yesterday morning 5:30am-ish, the nurses came in to do there check and see if I'm still alive thing, and Kevin was rousted as well and adiosed to catch a plane back to Portland.
He leaned down as he was leaving to hug me and all was well for 5.37629 seconds until the door closed behind him and the floodgates opened...the artesian will was uncapped and the tears flowed like Niagara Falls. When I cry, I am incapable of pulling out all the stops...we do runny snot, we rack and hack, we are unable to open our eyes and we just have to weather it out...and that's how I fell back to sleep.
I woke up again to another "vitals check" at 8:41am and as per usual opted out of breakfast, got up to put in the first DVD of 24 and spent the rest of he day tossing in my bed, being angry that I had cancer and was imprisoned against my will getting up only to powder my nose and to change DVDs.
Sooooooooooooooooooooo, late last night as I toss and turn I have this "I've been here before" feeling and then it comes to me...it's the same feeling/emotion that I went through after my diagnosis.
It warn't Kevin's fault that he came and stayed and left, twas me experiencing terror over having cancer.
I mentioned to both Kevin and Doug that I was taking this whole cancer thing a lot more serious since I moved in here to UCH. People, a.k.a. Dr.s, Nurses, Physician Assistants all talk about how serious my cancer is and how people die from it. I walk the halls and see people in wheelchairs hunched over with bandannas covering their bald heads and others pushing along their chemo delivery poles and it get's pretty depressing.
What I have to remember is that I'm not alone and that somehow I'm gonna get through this.....
.................................................................................................and then I get a call from my insurance company just now telling me that I'm approaching my "gap" in coverage and that I'm nearing the point where I'm going to be 100% responsible for 100% of my prescription drugs for the rest of the year!
Ouch.
I pressed "2" to request that a real person, not the digitalized voice that I'd been listening to, call me to discuss this and how I could maybe switch some of my meds to generics, and the digitalized voice told me that they would have a "Pharmaceutical Mentor" call me back within two weeks!
Oh, my. Now I have to figure out how to shut down my magic magnifying mind that will no doubt tell me at 3:12am this morning that seeing as how I don't have the prescription coverage I need I will cease getting the meds that I need and I will die.
What a ride.
I think tomorrow I'll ask to see the Social Worker assigned o me and see if'n she's got any ideas.
This could get scary!
And the nurse who gives me my Neupogen shots just brought in the two little vials and told me she'd be back in 10 minutes to give me the shots. They refrigerate the Neupogen and then like to let it get to room temperature as it supposedly won't hurt as much.
I was told that Neupogen was a pretty expensive drug. I wonder if its a "prescription drug"?
Dang.
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