The Shining

A friend of mine challenged some of us crazy poets to write haikus for a few days. So mine from today— to pick up kinda the Halloween theme and to gross you out (not really. what i’m telling you is truth as i always do). So here goes:

The shining

my husband helps me

into the tub for a bath

I am so humbled.

Why did i think of this? As he put a beach towel around me so I could get in, I told him i wasn’t going to take off my wig til he left bc i didn’t want to look like the rotting corpse in the bath in The Shining. My left breastless side is mottled purple from so many proton treatments. But i guess you could take the shining title to mean Dan is like the shikinah or god’s glory. And of course after bathing you’re all nice and new. Shining. I love language.

Now I’m gonna tell you some not so pretty things so you may want to stop reading, In addition to the other awful parts of cancer you deal with bathroom issues. Enemas you may have to give yourself, depends (the diaper kind), constant UTIs bc well, sex, is a real problem. And besides who is interested when your whole body hurts in new ways? And now i’m losing feeling in my fingertips from chemo.. My handwriting which was never good looks like scribble marks. Dan had to finish filling out a form for me yesterday. Thank goodness for typing. These things make me conscious that my body is slowly slipping away.

It’s metastatic cancer awareness day and I read many heartbreaking stories a day of metastatic women (mostly) wondering if tomorrow is going to be their last and how they’re dealing with their newest indignity or how sad they are that at 30 something they worry they can’t see their kids grow up. I try to encourage when i can—to be a light in my own limited way. Mostly it’s to say “i’m listening. i’m sorry. Life can be so unfair..” And no, it doesn’t help to say “God’s got this”bc some of them have been given weeks to live. In fact last week when a person said “be positive; none of us knows how long we have” the original writer told her to stop bullying her and accused her of being hostile.

But on a positive note, some progress is being made on new drugs. More needs to be done. You can contribute to metastatic cancer research https://mbca.me/3n5fRgl

And the other good news is my ankle healing ok and just have to wear boot 4 more weeks. No exercise or yoga classes or walks. boo! But ll will try to do core exercises. And I can drive! Early voting here I come.

And i’m so grateful for friends and family who take care of me/us. Although some hateful ppl pulled out our political signs in the yard (mean!) while i got chemo in Nashville, good friends brought over a yummy dinner and my dear son-in-law Daniel made us an apple crisp. So I hang onto the good things and the good ppl.

goodnight room/goodnight moon/goodnight cow jumping over the moon. and just goodnight. Sweet dreams. (if you can, after thinking of room 237. in The Shining.)