I wake up this morning -- about 4am -- rather suddenly... with a cramp in a calf muscle. Manage to shift my leg to ease the cramp... I'm sitting on the edge of the bed... crouched over... waiting for the cramp to fade so that I can straighten up and stand up.
Are you okay? asks Deb.
For some reason, Deb seems to worry when I perch on the edge of the bed and I'm obviously not moving anywhere. I don't think that I groan but I am clearly not going anywhere. Deb worries.
And that's how it is: I'm "on the inside", I know just how I feel and what is going on. I know that I have no cancer pain, I know when treatment is keeping me low -- and when it is not. Deb can only watch and worry.
Yesterday we went orienteering. I speak with a man who watched someone die of cancer. Die quickly but painfully. That's awful. Watching the pain and there's nothing you can do. Watching the death and there's nothing you can do. Then living with the memories.
I hope that I continue with no pain. Actual death -- in our planning -- is still three years, one calendar month and a few days from today. For purely selfish reasons :-) I hope that that 3+1+n is relatively pain free. I also don't want Deb -- or other people -- to see me die in pain.
If I die in pain -- I certainly will not hide it! I'll be looking for all the sympathy I can get... But for Deb -- as much as myself -- I hope that I will have very little pain.
Bad enough to miss someone. Worse if last memories are of suffering. Even worse if the suffering is prolonged.
Rest assured: once I'm dead -- I'm dead. I will not be worried! But for now... I want Deb to be less worried.
Are you okay? asks Deb.
Just a cramp, I reply. I need to drink lots of water... I need to move my leg... very carefully. Aaaaahhhh.... that's better, I can stand up now. This is not a sudden cancer problem. Just a cramp.
I love it that Deb worries about me.
I just hope that Deb's last memories of me will be of our life together... good and bad. I don't want those memories to be weighed down by memories of me being in misery and in pain.
Sure, that may be the way that my life ends... but that will just be at the end. There's been a lot more before that :-) Deb will be upset when I finally die. I hope that what she will remember will be the time that I have been alive.
If there is pain between life and death... it will be relatively brief. When I am dead... the pain will be gone. Deb can worry now... I hope that she will not worry when I am dead.
I certainly won't.
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(*) Does that subject line make sense? It just sprang to mind and I could not resist it. My blog, my words :-)
==== Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper / Flaneur
Agamedes Consulting / Problems ? Solved
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"Give a man an inch and he'll think he's a ruler" … Agent 86
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Now much more than a clever name for a holiday journal:
Makes sense
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