I should write more when I’m well. My last post was a little dreary, I’ll admit. I just thought you should know how it’s really going, since so many ask me what it’s like. I spared you some details that I hope none of you will ever know. Some things are better left unsaid. When I feel really good, you know, well enough to post something of substance, I usually have about 36 hours before I know I won’t, and I cram it full of life. Doesn’t leave much time for writing.

I am doing better. Not awesome, as my friend Nate put it so well, but better. It’s a relative term around here. Measured in fits and starts. One minute I am bouncing down the stairs after the dog. The next minute I’m creeping up them, almost too tired to make it to my bed. It’s how it goes. This last (LAST!) round of Red Devil absolutely leveled me. I don’t know any other way to describe it. A secondary infection took over my body the day after, which compromised a lot of things – like my ability to take compazine for the nausea, or prilosec for the the lighter-fluideasque reflux. Certainly no sleeping pills. I was delirious. I was miserable. And thankfully, I don’t remember much.

For the first time since this whole thing started, I have started to doubt how things are going. It’s impossible to describe the weight of this. How it grows with every day, the knowing, the not knowing. It’s not just about being sick. There are a lot of other things that happen in you, around you, for you, without you. There’s no anger bubbling up. Not at all. Some frustration, restlessness, resignation… I’m a girl who needs a plan, and this is just not going the way I planned. How could anyone not feel a little sideswiped? It comes and goes like the tide. This past week I was grateful every day when I opened my eyes and was still breathing. That was big. Ah, the little things.

I have not been well enough to take photos, so this post will lack a visual. (However if I did, it would be a photo of the stunning orchid my friend Duncan brought by to keep bedside) What I would like to do instead, is impart to you how wonderful it is, when I feel so incredibly sick, to know that there are so many incredibly wonderful people out there – those of you I know, and those of you I have yet to meet, who are praying, cheering, chanting, yelling, throwing things, just for me. I feel it. I need it. This is a lonely planet some days. And there isn’t much anyone can really do except put a good thought out into the air. For all of you who email, text, post, comment, call, send cards, letters, little tokens… I am grateful, even if you don’t hear back from me. Thank you for everything you do!

Despite the doubting moments, I’m committed to this project. This is just a fling I’m having with something dark and dangerous. Lord knows, I’ve already had a few of those and I did just fine.*wink*

I’ll be awesome… soon!