Wednesday, February 8, 2012

OVERKILL

I have every good intention and enthusiasm to write often and share in this little space many significant and mostly insignificant events that happen in my life, especially in association with my illness. But, this is the "funny" thing with having advanced, "terminal" cancer; you can not plan your day.

Every day is totally unpredictable and the factors that determine how one feels are unstable.

I wake up and I do not know how tired I would still feel, even after 8 hours of sleep.

I have to sit still for a few minutes to realize fully, if there is pain and how intense it is. Will I be able to function with that level of pain or not?  I usually do something everyday, no matter what the pain level is, unless it is excruciating. Those days, you just stay home and you try to chase your pain away, without becoming too much of a burden to your friends and family.

The last couple of days were very difficult. I still functioned, but I did not meet even half of each day's quota.

While I was driving around town, with every sense heightened, due to intense pain levels,  I noticed little things that usually do not register with me, unless somebody punches me with a fist to wake me up from my intense stupor. I am told that I am being perceived as, either terribly "focused" on what I am doing, or aloof  and unapproachable; depends, whose angle you want to see me through.

It is true, up to a point. I have a tendency to miss many things that other people find fascinating or simply interesting. I can stumble and fall, because I tripped on a pile of diamonds and I would describe it later as "the incident that I fell and cut myself all over my legs on a pile of pretty, shiny stones." It is true. I can be that moronic. My life is so surreal, if I did not get to experience it first hand, I would not believe half the things that I say, or do.

Yesterday, unlike all the other days, everything was registering. All the irrelevant, non worthy of an iota of any body's attention, was  getting mine. How freaking annoying.

At first I thought that may be I was supposed to pay attention to all the little things that were happening around me. May be there was a sign or a message from above, that one of my "guides" was trying to get to me. Yes, these days, I am out of the closet, I am a full blown "flake." I believe in miracles, messages, guides, hidden signs and all that good stuff and I am proud of it.

By the end of the day, I realized why I was so annoyed by certain things. There was TOO MUCH of  it.

The one incident that stuck on my mind was, that many cars had way too  many " bumper stickers" and  most of those stickers, were "cancer awareness" related.

I felt that the behind of each one of those cars was attacking me with pink ribbons, coming to hang me. There were that many in one car.  I do not know the specific colors  associated with the different types of cancer. All I know is that one SUV in front of me had at least 6 pink ribbons (breast cancer, that I know,) 2 blue, 2 green and all other kinds of colors.  I guess the owner of the car was going by the number of the ill breasts that she knew, not taking into account they are counted in pair and one sticker is enough. Actually one sticker should account for all the boobs that need to be recognized as sick and in need of attention. I am sure one of those stickers were representing sick male balls. Those come in pair too, people. One sticker is enough to get our "awareness" of all of them.

I am serious, after a while I was so sick of those stickers, I wanted to rip them off the cars. No wonder we become so numb and we do not pay attention to attempts  that try to promote awareness of something or other. We get inundated with so much of it, we shut off the awareness valve altogether.

So, the next time you are ready to put one of those stickers and defile your car with it, don't. Instead, run an errand for a person in too much pain to go get her own medication from the pharmacy. She/he will be eternally grateful and you will be aware that you can do something, which contributes to the battle against a formidable foe to the human race.

Thank you ahead of time, because you will also take away some of my stress. Those ribbons were chasing me even in my sleep. They made me "aware" alright. "Aware" not to pay any attention to any
 them any more.

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