Everything Changes

Yesterday I went to see Z. I think it might be the last time I ever get to see her. She is otherworldly now and I can't even say goodbye. She told me she was leaving Utah to visit her two oldest boys, her granddaughters. She says she'll be back in a couple of months. I doubt I'll ever lay eyes on her again, but since she can't admit that this is it, we can't really say goodbye. She seems so deeply delusional about her cancer and it's metastasis, the time so short, and she has ended treatment. She would not agree with me that she's ended treatment, since she's started treatment with hash oil, but it seems like palliative care to me. It seems like her version of hospice without ever admitting to herself or me or her children that she is close to death now.

Months ago she said she only wanted "positive energy" around her. She didn't want to hear anyone say, "You're too sick to be out of bed, too sick to scrub the fridge, you should be waited on, taken care of." And yet, she was too sick to do much of anything. Everything was such a life-sucking effort. Her youngest son and his family moved in to her house to take care of her. But I don't think she really let them take care of her. I went to see her one day and she was scrubbing the fridge, furious that it was so dirty, such a mess, so obviously needing to be done, yet she had not asked the kids to clean it.

Another day, a couple of months ago, she wanted fresh pita, hummus, yogurt, and halva from a Middle Eastern market just a few blocks from her house. Her daughter-in-law was now living with her and not working. But it was me she asked to bring her what she craved. I'm not sure she ever gave them the chance to help her, to care for her. The few things I did for her were so insignificant, and yet they always made me furious with the kids. To me it seemed as if they were living with her and not caring for her, not making sure she had whatever she needed or wanted. I have been mad at them, mad at her, mad at the world.

Ms M works at the University Hospital. She brought Z's medical records day before yesterday so I could take them to Z yesterday. It was so sweet of her to take her lunch time to go up to Huntsman and pick up all the records Z wanted to take with her to California, just in case she changes her mind about further treatment. Ms M has lived in my big house for five years this October. She has the run of the place. And I don't recall ever getting really angry with her until yesterday.

The night before last when she brought Z's records out to my place she had a glass of wine and spent some time visiting with me. When she got ready to go home she discovered that her roommate had locked the back door. Ms M borrowed my keys to let herself in and I said to her, "Don't forget to bring the keys back this time, I have a doctor appointment tomorrow and then I need to go see Z." She forgot. So when I got ready to go to the doctor there were a few moments of panic until I found the spare key to my car. I left my house unlocked. It wasn't such a big catastrophe, but it pissed me off. It was the second time she'd borrowed my keys to let herself in her house and forgotten to bring them back. Ordinarily I don't go anyplace so it wouldn't be a big deal. But yesterday, when I got back from the doctor appointment and grocery store, rushing to carry the bags in, unload them and hurry to Z's to see her for the last time, Ms M was sitting at the picnic table smoking. She was taking a break from leaf blowing. As I passed her I said, "You didn't bring my keys back to me. Not cool!" She said, "Sorry, I forgot. I'll get them now." I was loaded down and kept walking back to my place. I put groceries away, hurrying to get my chores done to go see my old friend for the last time. Ms M did not bring the keys out to me. I had to go pick them up from the picnic table where she was still sitting. Again I said. "Not Cool!" She said, "I was going to bring them to you." I said nothing. I grabbed the keys and left. We have not talked since. She is the last person in the world I would want to alienate. But in all the years we've known each other I have only been angry with her a couple of times. This was one of them.

When you're old and your best friend is dying, you are forced to face your own mortality. And in an instant, everything changes when you realize how very alone you really are.

The Great Depression

Here Marley is helping with the tree clean up. I knew then that Marley's hysterectomy was scheduled but she didn't yet. There is so much more going on besides Marley's hysterectomy. There is my best friend and her diagnosis of cancer and her commitment to "alternative modalities" that has the most impact on my feelings. I feel damn sorry for Marley. But I'm terrified that I may lose my best friend and much too soon. So I'm very sad to begin with. Even without the abyss looming I'm sad. It is my nature to be gloomy. It's either gloomy or euphoria. Happy? So fleeting it hardly registers. I have happy moments, but they happen inside the larger sadness.

Anyway, to get back to Marley and her hysterectomy on last Thursday during the day. While she was gone I was in a cleaning frenzy. Frenzied cleaning can take your mind off most everything if you do it right. But during this cleaning frenzy I not only found the pool of Marley pee in the greenhouse, but I also found the secret spot beside the garbage bag full of Navaho rugs neatly rolled and stored under the bed. You'd think I'd have smelled it. But she got between the tool box (full of prescription drugs I dispense to my weekly pill minder which I keep in the top dresser drawer to take out day by day so I never ever miss a days pills) and the roll of rugs incased in plastic bag. There she peed often enough for a small pond beneath the roll of rugs so rank when I dragged it out I cried not tears of sorrow, but the burning eyes and the tears of ammonia exposure. It dripped across the full expanse of the freshly cleaned Persian rugs and dripped on painted concrete floor on it's way to the door as I carried it outside to land on the deck in the pouring rain. One storm after another. Yes, we need the rain, but this much? I know of only one thing other than stress that can trigger an asthma attack for me and that's mold. I can smell it now when I go outside. Do you notice a theme here?

It took hours of trying to make myself flat enough to squeeze enough of my upper body under my heavy brass bed trying to reach every inch of space with a soapy rag over and over until all I could smell is Spic and Span. I worked so hard I dripped sweat, my hair soaked with sweat. I cursed the entire time. The only bright spot in this discovery of another Marley pee pool is that the roll of rugs kept the pee from continuing it's movement toward the east side of this slightly sloping floor and soaking into the Tibetan run under Cyrus' beds . Nothing's square in this place. And since I haven't been willing to find another little disaster I have refused to actually look inside the bag afraid I'll find that the rugs are ruined. But know this, it doesn't take much to make me cry right now, and my hair-trigger is cocked and has blown many times these past few days. Friends arriving unexpectedly have sent me over the edge into a shocking rage. I hope they will forgive me, but I haven't got what it takes to call and tell them I'm sorry about only one of the three things that pissed me off. Partly because I really was mad about several things that they'd walked into like a dare, like a bad move in a bad movie.

Marley came home and I still didn't have a clean house. As it turned out, it was just as well. Marley was in a little kennel with toweling for bedding, and Marley needed to be kept in her little kennel since she's recovering from major surgery. For almost 20 hours Marley hadn't eaten or drunk water. So I wasn't worried about her having to go potty. She came home with two prescriptions to take if she showed signs of pain or agitation. She came home with the plastic collar to use if she obsessively licked her sutured belly. I hoped not to have to use it since it looks like a kind of torture devise to me.

When she fully wakes from the anesthesia she whines pitifully. I give her tiny bits of soft food on my finger which she gobbles. I leave her kennel door open and she takes a couple of wobbly steps out on the floor and squats to pee. Okay, I give her a pass on that one. She is whiney and seems altogether out of sort. I know that feeling. I too had a hysterectomy long ago and it was the anesthesia that was the worst for me. I give her one of her pain pills, the Rimadyl and one of the anxiety pills to keep her from being over active and chewing at her stitches. She goes back into the kennel and curls up to sleep again. Then about an hour later she is awake and whining horribly. She scratching at the bedding in her kennel and a horrible stink is issuing from it's dark interior. I carry her in her kennel into the bathroom, since my nose tells me she's pooped in her bed. As it turns out her bum is leaking baby diarrhea, the color of mashed and runny yam and very foul smelling. There are only a few little smudges of it on her bedding, but her butt and tail are coated. I wash her off, change her bedding, give her on of the pills the Vet sent home with her to calm her if she's agitated. And she's agitated. I put her back into her kennel carry her back to the space by my bed so I can watch her. But now she wakes every couple of hours to whine. I take her out to pee and poop, but she doesn't like the rain. So she stands on the porch. When we come back in she pees on the persian rug before going back into her kennel. I am dancing on the fragile edge of my bipolar balance beam. I have missed two of my doses of the drugs that keep me sane and the drugs that keep my heart beating normally and the high blood pressure medication. I'm off my rocker and have no reserves.

And in the midst of all of this my three back lower right molars have abscessed. I am in agony but I was able to reach my dentist on his emergency number. I'm now taking antibiotics and Lortab. So far no improvement, but we're not dead yet. Nick called and I thought it might be Z so I answered the phone. The minute I heard his voice and started talking, I started sobbing. He's bringing books this afternoon. I'm going to try and read out this rough patch.