Living In Purgatory

Today 
Thursday Sept 22
I drug my laptop out to the front porch on this beautiful autumn day to write this.
Dappled sunlight peeking thru the almost century old trees in the front yard. Light breeze.  Crisp air
You can almost smell fall's impending arrival today. Fall is my 3rd least favorite season. 
Everything is dying....


My Mother-In-Law passed away.
Our good friend with brain cancer did too.
My husband and I didn't even attend either funeral. Not that we didn't care or want to be there to show support and say good-bye  to these two wonderful souls.... 
You see, the day they died, My poor husband was battling his own illness and was crouched once again in front of the lavatory puking his guts up. His blood values so poor that hugging or shaking the hands of loved ones that did come to pay their respects would have and could have been deadly.
Infection.
 I truly think his Mom wouldn't have minded a bit that we weren't there for her on that last day. Our friend wouldn't have cared either. 
Funerals and graveyards and sadness. They are my envelope these days and if I don't put that stamp on them and seal them up tight, what does it even matter? It doesn't.
September 15th came and went but the appointments to check and scan and scope didn't happen for us. My husband refused.
He hasn't given up, he simply doesn't want to know or deal.
I have been nudging him more as each day passes. 
"We really ought to make a phone call to see what is happening with you."
 Limbo is a fabulous place to be but some days it is more like Purgatory. Not knowing what next month or next week or tomorrow or even 30 minutes from now will be is no good way to live.
Last Saturday I had reached my absolute limit. 
My curling iron took the brunt of it and now looks more like the letter "C" than any kind of hair styling tool since I banged it over and over and over on my vanity table  until it was DEAD.  
Repeating over and over with each blow the word 
DEAD DEAD DEAD DEAD DEAD DEAD.
My heart feels dead. My mother in law is dead. 
Our lives and our future seems dead.
Do I exaggerate? Too much Drama?
Ha~ 
Try it for a week.
Live it for a month.
Experience it with a loved one.
I feel like we are living in a pressure cooker and the lid blew straight off the top on Saturday.
I get so many notes and phone calls from amazing friends that say,
"Just hire someone. Pay a nurse to come feed him via the tube for a day or even two. Hire someone to give him his meds and clean up the puke and do what you are doing daily. Get out of that house! 
Go LIVE!"
Ya, right.... How in the name of God do you PAY to have someone hold your husbands hand or rub his shoulders as he hurls up two days of meals? Will someone that doesn't truly love him bother to wipe his mouth and give him comfort when he's hurting?
 How do you PAY to have a nurse LOVE your man for you?
My answer, at least for me... You don't.


I did what any red blooded American wife would do in time of crisis and frustration.
I took the credit card and Went Shopping! 
Boy, did I shop. It felt so good. So wrong yet so right.
I returned home after a 2 hour binge at the mall.
It was my version of Shopping Fast and Shopping Furious.
 Sephora, Saks, Neiman Marcus, Macy's. 
Pure Bliss and forgetfulness and racks and shelves of normalcy. 






You know how you lay in bed in the quiet of the night right before you go to sleep but instead you and your spouse talk? 
Some of our best talks are at that time. Heart to heart in-depth talks.
Two nights ago, holding hands in the dark, we made the decision to finally call the doctors in two weeks and get the ball rolling once again. See what and where we are  in this disease. 
Is the cancer gone? 
Two weeks.


The phone rang yesterday morning.
It was the oncologist's office. 
"We have you scheduled for your scans on Friday after blood work at the lab. Be there at 12:45. Expect the scans to last 4 hours. Then, you have an appointment on Thursday the 29th with the doctor to discuss your results."
Friday.
Tomorrow.
We will have the results on Thursday, next week.
I think we both want to rush back to the safe cocoon of our ignorance now that it's out of our hands.
I WILL get him to that appointment tomorrow. 
I will!
We are both so Nervous. Anxious. Fearful.
Fingers Crossed.....