Lull

I am in a lull. A ditch. At time of nothingness, a vacuum, a vortex. Nothing.

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day

Fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way

Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town

Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

I'm in the in-between. The in-between time, between chemotherapy and radiation. I guess my doctors weren't talking to each other so one of them was ready to start me on radiation, while another of them in another room in another corner on another planet wanted me to have a third surgery, while the third of them, the oncologist, was merrily managing my dripping. The radiation expert did not know that I needed a third surgery so was planning to send me off to the microwave right away. She was shocked and surprised when I reminded her that I was supposed to have a third surgery. I had no idea that I was the one to bring this news to her, I thought they were talking to each other behind the magic curtain. 

Now the surgeon's schedule is too booked up and she cannot fit me in. So everything has come to a screeching halt. My radiologist called me at home the other night to say that she would set up a special meeting with her colleagues on Monday, which was yesterday, to discuss and re-present my case to them. I thought that was very nice, and it made me feel good for a few days.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain

You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today

And then one day you find ten years have got behind you

No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

She said that she would call me on Tuesday. So here I am. It's Tuesday and I'm like a bug stuck with a pin, stuck to Tuesday, stuck at home, like a 15-year-old girl in 1973 waiting for a boy to call her. The Austin Cancer Center (my place) likes to call my home phone, so I'm just sitting around waiting for my home phone to ring. I'm doing laundry and rearranging bookshelves and I just watched an interesting movie about a girl with autism called Fly Away. And I'm trying to eat healthy food and all that stuff but I've got to say this is damn boring as hell and very frustrating. I feel like a useless used sour cream container that's just sitting there at the bottom of the recycling bin, I'm not even being recycled, I'm just sitting there.

Waiting.

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking

Racing around to come up behind you again

The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older

Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

I know, I know, I'm not useless and this will pass and this is just a temporary thing and everything is going to be okay and life is wonderful. I get it. But part of the problem with having breast cancer is that it sort of sucks your identity away a little bit, and although I think I've managed to hold onto my identity pretty sort of, this feeling of waiting around for other people to tell me what to do feels very gray and foggy and I feel myself getting gray and foggy and misty, I'm kind of evaporating and getting thinner in terms of taking up space in the world. This must be what it feels like to be older and to be in poor health and to be buffeted around in the pinball game of doctors where you ping from one doctor to another to a nurse to a phone call to an appointment and on and on. Ping! Ping! I don't like that. In fact it keeps me up at night so I can now add lack of sleep to my stupid list of stupid stuff that is stupid.

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time

Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines

Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way

The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say

I'm in my nice home, with my nice tuna salad, and my nice yellow squash with butter and salt and pepper, and my nice television, and my nice new bookshelves. And I'm nice. And my couch is nice. I've done all the weeding and now the yard looks nice. The laundry is coming along nicely. 

Home, home again

I like to be here when I can

When I come home cold and tired

It's good to warm my bones beside the fire

Far away, across the field

The tolling of the iron bell

Calls the faithful to their knees

To hear the softly spoken magic spell

After I had my second lumpectomy, my surgeon clearly said that I would need to have a third one between chemo and radiation. She said this to ME. Somehow, my oncologist didn't know this, and when I mentioned it to her she said the chemotherapy would probably take care of the remaining margin left in my body. But then my radiologist, who apparently never heard that I was supposed to have a third surgery from anyone, said that chemotherapy sometimes doesn't get at any remaining margin because of impeded blood flow to that area due to previous surgeries. Well, that got my attention! Now I'm all like, hurry up and get this remaining margin thing out of my body stat! Let's go to surgery right now! I don't want any cancer cells in my body at all! 

So I'm getting conflicting information. I can deal with this, I know I'm not the center of the universe for doctors, or breast cancer, or surgeons or anyone. I don't expect perfection, but I would like to move along to the next stage, because the stage is flattening me.

Here is my plan:

1. Get call from a doctor. This doctor could be a radiologist or a surgeon.

2. Rush off to have surgery at a moment's notice. Or, alternately, hear that I don't need to have surgery. (Which will result in a debate with me). Or, alternately, write down a date in my calendar to have surgery sometime in the next few weeks.

3. Start radiation.

Just waiting for item number one to commence.

Lyrics: Pink Floyd "Time" (of course - but you knew that)