I'm Trying To Think But Nothing Happens!

The immortal words of Curly Howard ring in my mind on a regular basis. 

Little over a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer.  It appears we won that fight for now.  What follows isn't inspirational, supportive, insightful or meaningful to to the brave souls who are fighting the battle against this dread malady.  It's instead a peek under the covers, a trip down the rabbit hole.

Radiation and in particular chemotherapy is a grand game of chicken.  Basically, the practitioners of this medieval art bet they can kill The Cancer Devil before they kill....you.  The idea is to suppress your immune system so they can use their magical feathers and beads to ward off the evil spirits. 

Think of the human body as a complex system with a series of primary and secondary defenses designed to redundantly fend off attack from a hostile environment.  Cancer has somehow jumped the defensive perimeter and is "inside the wire".  The only way to win is to bomb the enemy into submission, and you along with it. 

One by one you can feel your systems shutting down.  This gradual process is both physical and mental.  Things you take for granted just don't work or work at a minimal level.  If you forget to drink enough water your kidneys shut down and you die...quickly.  If you can't eat enough you lose weight faster than a bulimic Hollywood movie star and..you die.  The Shamans suck blood out of you until your veins collapse and won't give any more.  You are radiated until you glow in the dark like a radium watch.  You are loaded up with more toxic chemistry than a street junkie.

Most strangely, your mind begins to shut down.  With every new assault another system turns itself off.  Life becomes primitive and non-instinctual.  You get as close to a single-cell organism as a thinking creature can get.  Then, blessedly, it gets very, very quiet.  Thinking is out of the question, your mind doesn't want you dealing with the realities.  So one by one the lights go out until just enough is left to breathe and move. 

Every thought you ever had recedes in the shadows and squats in the darkness waiting for the nightmare to end.  Then one day you realize it has begun to end.  It doesn't happen in one day but at some point life is more worth living than just tolerating. 

This gets me to the point of origin, the place I was going.  A bunch of my memories are still hiding in mental foxholes.  I began to notice this as I was cleaning up around the house.  I have enough strength to do that now and it's sorely needed after so long a time of nothingness.  I will find something, hold it up, look confused or mutter something and my dear wife will say "I gave you that when we first met, it  was a Christmas present".  This has repeated itself many times now and my life-mate each time patiently tells me what I am holding and why it is meaningful.  It may also be a topic of discussion, someone we know or some point of reference from the past that I have forgotten.  It's like an odd little archaeological dig.  Up will pop a fragment of that pot that held my life, a piece that fits with yet another piece that is yet to be discovered. 

These memories aren't gone, they are simply hiding from sight.  At times I feel like an alien in my own life, discovering some new land or planet this was mine for the taking all along.

I owe my life to so many people, most of all to my dear wife.  So, I am off on a journey of discovery, a discovery of my self....a discovery of life.