It Could Be Worse
It Could Be Worse
“Are you getting enough sleep?” asks the doctor, and Eve draws breath to answer.
I crawl into bed at eight o’clock, tired out and nauseous and longing for oblivion. I wake up twelve hours later, or thirteen or fourteen. I am greedy for sleep, I want only sleep. I seek unconsciousness like a crack addict seeking a hit.
“Oh yes, I think so,” she says. “Plenty, thanks.”
“And while you’re taking the chemo, do you have any sickness?”
I feel like my insides are pulverizing themselves into smithereens. I feel polluted and poisoned and ready to turn myself inside out. My skin feels sick. My hair feels sick. I have never known a feeling like this.
“I feel a bit sick sometimes,” says Eve. “But it could be worse.”
“What about fatigue?”
I feel dead like a corpse. I feel like I can’t even move my little finger. My body weighs a ton and every thought is exhausting.
“I feel a bit tired sometimes,” says Eve. “But it could be worse.”
“What about mentally? How’s your mood?”
I cycle through denial, despair, shock, grief, and then sometimes ridiculous happiness. I appreciate small pleasures so much more than I did, but then along comes the brutal knowledge again. Sometimes I contemplate dying and leaving my family and I can’t bear it. I wait until the house is empty, then cry ugly sobs, inconsolable, loud, keening and wailing, punching the bed with ineffectual, powerless fists….
“Oh, up and down,” says Eve after a long pause. “But, you know. It could be worse.”