Hanging Fire

At 5 AM, I awoke thinking of title term as I wrote an email to a friend. It means: “As an idiom, to hangfire(or hang fire) means to delay an action or to be delayed in an accomplishment or action; to come to no distinct result; to fail to achieve an expected result.”

It’s actually a military term about a weapon failing to fire or something like that.

But when the term popped into my sleepy head, I also thought of Audre Lorde’s poem “hanging fire” that I used to teach at UT. I liked it—look it up if interested. It’s about all the things that a 14 yr old girl wants to accomplish, but she’s stuck at home & “momma’s in her bedroom with her door closed.”

That’s what this recent process has felt like to me—waiting for this process to be completed. It’s my birthday and all my counts are in the toilet as my doc said yesterday. I’m the most anemic I’ve ever been (in 3 years), my absolute neutrophils are at .3 which is terrible, I have a UTI and a cough because my white cell count so low.

But it’s also been a fun week with a trip to Charleston with my friends. We stayed at Wild Dunes at Isle of Palms where I’ve never been. In retrospect I’m not sure how I got off the couch and walked on the beach. But good food and author events spurred me on. My friends have been my lifelines for the past three years. We even sang “White Coral Bells” in a round some evenings which reminded me of childhood. Do you remember? “White coral bells upon a slender stalk,/ lilies of the valley deck my garden walk.”

My 3 yr anniversary of my diagnosis is coming up on Feb. 9. So just wanted to update y’all. Radiation starts next Tuesday (28th) of right side if they can get my white counts up with neupogene shot (yesterday and mwf of next week). My radiation doc said he had discussed my case all over town, and they decided radiation best option. If they tried surgery they might have to dig around to find cancerous lymphs and they may not even get them and one is particularly close to chest wall. So six weeks of radiation /big field, but my right side has never gotten radiation so it should tolerate okay. When I’m done, I will have had 110? rad. treatments. My doc also said he’s never seen anyone go through as much as I have and remain in fairly good spirits and shape. It is getting old, however.

So that’s all for now. When you don’t want to party on your birthday, you know you’re tired. Will sit on couch today bundled up and maybe watch “zombieland 2” (Comedy and horror my fav. genre these days). I suppose I feel like a zombie some days :). But don’t feel too sorry for me; I’ve been partying all week!

(And I’m seriously, seriously tired. So if I’m grouchy or uncommunicative or turn you down for something that’s why.)