It's ridiculous to compare the two really. I'm not sweating drops of blood, and my torture is minuscule at it's worst compared to His of course, but still, this is my Agony in the Garden. Waiting, always waiting and living in constant dread and fear. Hating the sound of the phone ringing, knowing it could be another doctor with more bad news. I finally understand this Mystery of the Rosary. Waiting for the impending suffering, the human mind plays terrible tricks on you and the worst part is that they may even be based in reality. Waiting. Waiting for the results of tests and surgeries and biopsies. Not knowing if it's stage 2 or stage 4, not knowing if the chemo will kill it, not knowing if you'll survive the chemo, not knowing if you can afford the time off, not knowing how you will take care of your little girl, not knowing what caused this in the first place, not knowing if you've just started the slow unstoppable descent into your death.
I keep thinking the waiting has got to be the worst part. . . but then it is only the first of five Mysteries about suffering, and death is only at the very end of them. I keep thinking once I REALLY know what I'm fighting, well then I can dig my heels in the sand and fight it with all I've got. But first of all you NEVER know what you're fighting. All I seem to encounter are Dr. Vague's who can only, at best, give you an idea of what you're facing but not the precise parcel. They thought it was in one breast - now it may be in two. They thought it was only 1cm, now it may be 5cm, they thought it was confined to the breast, now it may have spread to other organs. . . . All these tests and nobody knows anything. .
But in the end knowing is not better. Yesterday we had our "Chemo teaching" session at the oncologist office. Basically they sit you down and list everything you're about to go through. "You're going to lose your hair" is just the beginning. By the time I left the office I was in tears because I was hunched over with brittle bones and no signs of youth or fertility anywhere. My mouth was full of sores and my chest and other cavities were covered in rashes and boils, I was either constipated or diarreah or throwing up all the time. I was lethargic and my heart was palpitating and unstable. My fingertips and toes were numb and tingling, and I couldn't sleep. Oh and I was bald. Knowing is not better. Waiting is better than knowing.
They inserted something called a "port" into my chest to save me feeling pricks every time I go in for treatments and tests. Well. . . they used the port for the first time this week and I was literally screaming in the treatment area while three technicians held my hand and pushed this searing-pain needle into my chest over and over and OVER. "I don't know why it isn't working" they'd say to each other, then they would go get someone else who would start jamming and pushing and poking all over again. Thanks for the port. . . next time I'll just take the stinking IV!
Still, even though horror is horror, something in me has changed and accepted the cancer now. I'm still crying three or four times a day, and certainly every time I talk to a doctor or technician, but something has accepted it in my mind. This is my suffering, my horror, it's my turn. And even though I hate to admit it, somewhere in the back of my mind there is a tiny voice that can be discerned no matter how I try to squelch it. It both terrifies and delights me. It keeps saying "One day you will thank Me for this."
Impossible.
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