Possibly. The jury’s still out on that, I think.

I got out and about today. For 20 minutes. I rode in the car with Honey to the grocery store. While he went shopping (for 99% liquid things, he noted later) I thumbed through the ads in today’s paper. Then, when we came home, he dropped me off at the mailboxes, from whence I walked the remainder of the way home. Hobbled was more like it…I was in my cowgirls slippers after all.

I still feel like shit. I feel like I’ve been run over by some kind of nasty sputtering, about-to-give-out semi truck. And then reversed upon. And driven over again. Repeatedly. Sometimes the pain meds work. Most of the time they don’t. Ususally, they are accompanied by nasty halluciongenic side effects which may sound intreguing to you, for me, assuredly, it is NOT. Nausea comes and goes. Nothing regular to speak of. When I really stop to thinik about it I feel like I have the flu. Only it’s day 13 of the flu and it still feels like day 2 of a three-day bit. Yeah the nurse says I should be “rounding a corner” at two weeks. That’s tomorrow. And believe me, missy, I am holding her accountable for that PROMISE. Honey tells me to go easy on her but I’m sick of being sick. Beyond sick of being sick. No place feels comfortable anymore, not the couch, the recliner, the chairs in the front room, the bed, the guest bed. Honey (or somebody else who is just as supportive though, not quite as handsome) has to change the bedsheets every other day because I sweat through them in a matter of minutes. I’m surviving on a mostly liquid diet because the sores in my mouth make chewing awfully difficult to enjoy a real meal. Powerade in various toxic colors, Carnation instant breakfast in your three basic ice cream flavors and your occasional juice beverage are keeping me going. I drink water all day every day in between because I keep reminding myself that it’s the quickest way to flush this chemo out of my body (and OUT i want it at this point OUT OUT OUT!). I pee almost as often as I take a breath.

It’s not that I’m being lasy or that I just don’t have any energy to do anything. Both of those are true. But I just gerenally feel like you do on the second day of a big time flu diagnosis. You tell someone, “I’ve got the flu.” and they say or think, “Ohhhh okay. Well you’ll be down and out for a couple days, but then you’ll be back to work, on your feet, back to your old schenannegans or whathaveyou.”

Must I repeat this is day 13.

Clearly I am feeling somewhat improved otherwise I wouldn’t be dancing my fingers so coherently across this keyboard. I have my Honey to thank for that. Without even trying or suggesting anything, his energy inspires me that as long as he’s by my side, I can sit in the car and go the store with him…or I can sit here and type on my blog while he eats his sammich nexxt to me (although it smell of it is revolting!). I can do it because I love him and he’s the only thing in the consistancy of this forsaken treatment that hasn’t gotten old or boring or wore out its welcome. He is my Honey and he helps me get through each day. Which makes the days without him, when he has to go to work and bring home some bacon, all the more difficult. But he does it because he loves me and the best part is he works the early shift: goes in before dawn and comes home before rush hour begins. You’d think that means I get more time with him than your usual housewife in the evenings but it doesn’t considering, in order to get a good night’s sleep, he should really go to bed at 8pm (9 or 10 is more like it). Anyway, I take what time I can get from him with a smile and I am so grateful for all the people who have pitched in in the meantime to be with me these past couple weeks. I’m really not much company. I usually just lie upstairs in the dark and sleep while Carolyn or Lindsay or whomever sits down here and lets the dogs in and out and in and out and in and out and brings me food (aka drink) or changes the sheets or listens to me cry every once in a while. It’s very nice. Everyone’s been very kind to me through this. And for that I thank you all.

Also, thank you everyone for your comments or emails of late. Reading them helps prop me up. They remind me that I’m on the right track doing all that I can do to get better for now. That there’s nothing to worry about. You can’t imagine how much joy that small smidgeon of supportive reality that brings me. So thank you for that too, all ya’ll.

And now my internal battery light is blinking. POWER IS LOW. MUST RECLINE……

I can’t promise you another chatty post like this for a while. And although it is hopeful, please don’t assume that because of this chatty one that I’m 100% better and ready to rumble again. I’m not. I’m in a haze right now. I’m going to lie down. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get another spurt of energy. Lordy, I hope so. I am so tired of this. But try as I may, I have not been able to ignore it!

Happy Weekend to all and to all A Goodnight!