Waiting for Godot

In college I became quite the expert on Samuel Beckett. This was something that I knew would serve me well in career choices later in life along with my expansive knowledge of Victorian literature. Anyway, Beckett's most famous work was a play called Waiting for Godot, the story of two men who spend their lives standing on the side of the road waiting for the appearance of a never seen man named Godot. Each day they leave convinced he will surely come tomorrow.

I woke up thinking about that play this morning. I started a new chemo drug this week which promises different side-effects than my previous drug. So I sit waiting for them to appear. They didn't come yesterday, but surely they would come today and if they don't, they will come tomorrow. Or maybe they will never come or they will be different than what the health care people promised. So I wait.

In the meantime I distract myself with books and computers and worrying about other things like will my eyebrows make it through this next round of chemo? But really, I am waiting for something that may or may not show up. And regardless of the preparation, I won't be ready.

It's the little things

Cancer is a big scary word. We all know someone who has died from it, gotten it, survived it, or operated on it, but it is still a great unknown. That is why I chose to bury my head in the sand. One of my colleagues who survived read every bit of research she could find. I focused my attention on how I could draw in eyebrows should the time come.

So for me, it is not the big scary things that frighten and frustate me it is the little things that occur every day that I can't control. The almost neverevending queasiness, the taste of metal in my mouth, sores, infections, pestilence, plague, and keeping my scarf pulled over my ears. You know, the little things. I thought I had it all under control. I don't.

I am getting ready to start my next round of chemo facing a whole new drug. I made the mistake of looking it up on the world wide internet to find side-effects. What I found were horror stories of nail fungus and neuropathic pain. I can take pain, but nail fungus? As I said, it's all the little things that pile up every day and become this giant mole hill that I get out of bed every day and climb over. But I know I am lucky. I have a good prognosis and the side effects are annoying but not insurmountable. I just spoke with a colleague whose mother has had cancer for seven years and she lost all her body hair, but never her eyebrows. God is good.

Going it alone

Last Saturday my sister went home. She has a job, a home, family, guess I had to let her go, but it wasn't easy. For the last month she has been my companion, my helper and my co-conspirator. But even more importantly, the two of us got to watch Top Chef and Project Runway together.

We planned our evenings around those events. Tonight I have to go it alone. I can do it. We will call and text and email and go over the fine points, but it won't be the same. So this post is not about me, it is about this wonderful woman who I used to torture as a child because she had the bad luck to be my little sister. So thanks kid for not holding it over my head that I could beat you up or banished you to the living room when I had friends.

I miss her more than I can say. But I especially miss her tonight when I will sit alone with a scoop of ice cream (I'm not going to suffer entirely) and watch Top Chef. I hope that she is happy and content and maybe, just a little, misses me too.