Round Two
It's back.
A quick summary. Three weeks ago, I started to get a pain in my side. You know, when you are running, and you haven't been running for a while, and you get that stinging pain in your side? That. Well, it got worse fast. One day, it got really bad at work, but I used the restroom, and I felt better. A week later, it happened again, and going to the restroom didn't work. Ironically, downing a 20 ounce Gatorade did, 12 hours later. I figured I'd visit the local urgent care, get some prescriptions, and have a cheap Little Caesar's pizza for lunch on the way home. Yeah. Didn't happen.
Last Wednesday, I had a biopsy of my liver, and on Friday, as I tried to dig out of the giant pile of invoices that were left for me, I received the call. The Cancer is back. And, it's spreading.
I've always been a realist. My Aunt had this exact same Cancer in 2005, and it killed her. Now, admittedly, she waited too long, and it spread faster than a wildfire fueled by Santa Ana winds. I've got one of those Colorado wildfire types of Cancer, that spreads, but just takes it's sweet time about it. I can picture little people on my liver trying to hold the disease at bay with little hoses. The pancreas population has to be petrified.
I am still numb at this news. I don't believe that this has happened to me a second time. I sacrificed most of my 2013 to survive this crap, and it seems to have been for naught. Am I going to have to do this chemotherapy shit again? Will I have to spend another summer drinking lukewarm water and sleeping 16 hours a day - only being awake long enough to be the biggest asshole I can possibly be to my co-workers, fellow commuters and the other imbeciles in traffic? (Admittedly, the traffic imbeciles and bicyclists most likely deserve it.)
Another summer of my mother absolutely wringing herself ragged worrying about me? My siblings, nieces and nephews trying to make me feel as normal as possible, knowing full well that it's not going to happen? My small circle of friends constantly having to message me to keep my spirits up, when they have lives of their own to worry about?
I have never really considered myself to be a person of importance. I don't have a significant other in my life. I live in the same house with my mother. I don't have a social life, and I rarely go out to do things I like. I'm running out the clock as it is - now I've been given a subtle reminder that my clock doesn't have as many revolutions left in it as the clocks of people my same age. Or even people much older than me.
I've not lived a remarkable life. I've not brought children into the world. I've not written a great book, sung a great song, climbed a high mountain, sailed a big ocean, won the big game, or acted in the big play. I've been told that I've been loved, only to have that love recant her words. I've had friends demand my time only to later tell me that my presence was no longer needed. I've been low. I've been defeated. I've been told that I can't. And, yet, I'm still here.
I feel like Muhammad Ali has punched me for 15 rounds. I feel like CM Punk has hit me with the GTS a dozen times. I feel like Troy Polamalu has sacked me 50 times. He has pads on, and I don't. I wake up in the morning, and I go to sleep at night with the same thought... Why am I here? Still?
I don't have the answers. And life keeps changing the questions. So I continue, hoping against hope, that the turnaround will come. That this disease will leave me alone. That someone will want to wake up next to me. That I won't be so shy, so introverted, so closed. But this disease does that. It closes you off, because you want everyone around you to enjoy their lives - even while yours is forever changing.
I hate this disease. I hate what it's doing to me. And I hate that it's doing it to me again. A very large part of me wants to fight - to drive this evil from my body once and for all. To gain a total victory over something that others have lost to.
And a small part of me just wants to go to sleep.