 ©1999-1999 ICFTP What're you, kidding? |
17 March 1999:
I feel like I'm coming down off of a week-or-so long high.
I've been almost giddy. Going for seven or eight days (in a row!) without some kind of depression or anxiety is quite a new experience. I don't know whether the medication is working (daily 20mg dose of Paxil, if you're curious), or whether I just reached a threshold of pain and broke through, and can now deal. Maybe it's the marathon sex, I dunno.
David wrote and asked me about this roller-coaster ride I'm on, and it got me thinking, and that got me writing. Next tuesday, I'm headed up to Birmingham for an appointment with the bone marrow transplant folks at UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) to talk about the very real and gritty details of the transplant, to set a date for it (and, quite frankly, I am terrified) and also to talk with a doctor about all the emotional shit I've been going through. I've got a lot of questions for him... like, how do I find some equilibrium? Is it REALLY bad for me to drink a whole fifth of whiskey at a time? Why has my sex drive, which until now I thought was disturbingly high, suddenly kicked into an even higher gear? And why are there suddenly lots of wonderful partners around to share it with? I mean, come on! I always wanted to try a menage a'trois... and it's never quite worked. Until this week, and it happened twice, with three different chicks! Which brings me to this:
Things are tough, but I've also got some really good shit going on... which gets me thinking about that whole 'nature of life' concept-type-thingy. I mean, I get hit with this fucking terminal cancer, of all things, and my life gets better in direct proportion, apparently so that I can deal with this thing. I find that entirely weird. I've met someone, who just happens to live in Birmingham (and works at the university where I'm getting my transplant!) and just happens to want to take care of me when I'm there, and just happens to be capable enough to actually do it. She's getting us an apartment now. But where the hell did she COME from?!?!?!?! I met her right after I was diagnosed. She's familiar with pain like this, having lost her younger brother to a stupid handgun accident (and boy am I glad I didn't tell her how I feel about idiots who shoot themselves 'playing' with guns... would not have made me popular with her) and she is mature and very capable at taking care of the details of life, which I desperately need, since I'm concentrating on 'higher' things... like sanity. Man, I don't have answers to this one, I didn't even think that occurances like this were real. I don't really think about it that much... well, not really... well... anyway, I'm trying to experience life and get through this while enjoying the good stuff as much as I can. It occasionally occurs to me that if I were writing a fictional story, I would kill my character off, and let all the other characters talk about how intense his life was in his last months, and wasn't that great for him? Oh god. Scares me.
a little Lyle Lovett for ya, chilluns'
To the Lord let praises be
It's time for dinner, now let's go eat!
We've got some beans and some good cornbread
And I listened to what the preacher said
Now it's to the Lord let praises be
It's time for dinner now let's go eat!