Lost In Love

I’m feeling better…not perfectly well, but on the mend and staying close to home. After a few heart to heart talks with the man who hold my heart in his hand, I’m just soaking it up. Laying low and perfectly content to stay lost in love.

Answer

I don’t know what tomorrow holds. So all I’m asking for is today, this moment with the man who has moved me like no one else ever could. All I wish for is the here and now with the man who has captured my heart and soul, the one who has given me the strength to believe and love again.

With his arms around me as I lay my head on his chest, as I feel his heart beating beneath my cheek I know that for now I am right where I need to be. I may not be the last one he holds and kisses goodnight, but for now I am his one and only. I’m the one he holds close, the one he reaches for in the early morning light, the one he swears is the love of his life.

The Knight is everything I’ve ever dreamed of and I wouldn’t change a thing about him. Not his grumpy morning attitude or his crude sense of humor, not his cowlick or his bad habits. Everything about him is everything that I love, for now and for always.

When I am scared he is the one who reassures me. When I am sad, he is the one who makes me smile without fail. Where there was uncertainty he showed me confidence and where there were wounds he showed me healing. In his eyes I see myself in a way I never thought possible, in such a way that makes me want to stay in that place, lost in their beautiful blue.

Now more than ever I am convinced that God knows what He’s doing. Everything happens for a reason. If I die first, I believe in my heart of hearts it’s because I could never live without The Knight, the half that made me whole.

Life was the question and my husband, my everything…he is the answer.

This Makes Me Sad

His wife had a cancer blog that I only recently found but I haven’t had the courage to read all of it yet. I did, however, find her husbands site. My heart aches when I read it because I can’t fathom what he must be feeling. I know that his words are heart wrenching, so the pain he must be feeling must be a thousand times worse.

It makes me wonder how my own husband will respond. I mean, after seeing P.S. I Love You (By the way, the movie is AMAZING and so undeniably sad…and the music is wonderful, gotta have…gotta see!) he pretty much said that he’d move on immediately, so I guess I know the answer. Maybe ours isn’t the forever kind of love like others. Maybe not being his first love makes me less or maybe not sharing the things that other couples share, like children, makes us less than other couples.

It hurts and it makes me angry. Am I not worth loving? Am I not anything worth missing? I have given him the best of who I am every second of every day since I’ve known him. Is it too much to ask…? Never mind. I’m not going there. Not there, not today.

Here is Lori’s blog.
Here is Cary’s blog.

And here is the song that keeps playing in my head over and over again.

On The Mend

It seems as though I may actually be getting a little better. To be on the safe side my physician has scheduled me for a chest x-ray and loads of lab work in the morning. I still sound horrible and very much like a man but I can breathe a bit easier, so I’m happy.

Proof that I may actually be on the surviving side?

My husband and I had morning sex! You know the kind I’m talking about, right? Minimal foreplay, “assume the position because you’re gonna get it” and “oh my God!” all in one beautiful five minute time window. A quickie of quickies. How delicious and delightfully unexpected on this cold winters morning. Seriously, I can’t tell you the last time before-work sex crossed my mind…well, I can tell you, but I can’t tell you the last time we did it!

Hopefully your day is going as well as mine.

What The World Needs Now Is Love

When I was in school one of the books that moved me the most was Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. The idea of what she went through, like thousands of others, wasn’t something that I could wrap my young mind around and even now I struggle to do so. I can’t imagine being in that position, living life that way, but she did it with courage and with grace stuck somewhere between a woman and a child.

This morning as I sat down to read the news it caught my eye that a photo of her beloved Peter had been found. After all these years and the powerful lines she used to describe him, there is finally a face to put to the name. (You can read the article here.) She wrote that a photo wasn’t necessary for her to remember Peter because “I’ve never had such a clear mental image of him. I don’t need a photograph, I can see him oh so well.” At that point it had been almost two years since she’d seen him, but her heart and mind knew well the way he looked.

Maybe I’m a sap, a hopeless romantic until the end, but it does my heart good to know that now the world can see what Anne saw. Now we know what her Peter looked like in a photo as well as in her heart.

With the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and various other places there are no doubt countless stories that are not unlike Anne’s. Fear and hatred tear children from their mothers and lovers from one another’s arms and it saddens me that we live in a world where people still feel that it’s okay to rip lives apart at the seams. Have we learned nothing from our past, from the stories of young women like Anne Frank?

Gas prices soar and there are people living on the street. Children die of hunger in America too. Mothers and fathers lose control and snap while trying to make ends meet, but money and oil aren’t what we’re missing.

Love is.

Love is the precious commodity that is in such short supply the entire world over.

Queen of Denial

I haven’t made a habit of adding too many cancer blogs to my sidebar. I guess it’s pretty dumb when you stop to think about it, because this blog isn’t so much a sex blog anymore- at least not in the way that it once was. Funny, but cancer has that effect on people, I suppose. Why shouldn’t I add cancer blogs to my sidebar? This is my home after all. The place I come to when there is nowhere else, the one area that is mine to do with as I damn well please and if that includes playing Queen of Denial, so be it.

Tonight though I have realized the real reason that I don’t add most of the cancer blogs to my sidebar is that they terrify me. Each day I read and follow links to other blogs of people who haven’t beaten the odds. I read last entries of people on their last days alive or entries made by their spouses or families once they have passed and it makes me realize that the reality is what it is.

While there isn’t a doctor alive who can give any of us an exact time of death, we all die sometime. If you have cancer it will probably be sooner rather than later, but no guarantees there either. For almost two years now I’ve fought until I feel as if I have absolutely nothing left to fight with. So why am I still here? Why am I the one who gets to sit here and write yet one more blog post? There are so many others who aren’t- others who have fought harder with a better attitude for a longer amount of time, so why me?

*shrug*

I don’t have the answer. I don’t have any answers. All I have is some minuscule amount of hope left to get me through. I have family and friends that pray for me and love me when I don’t have it in me to love or pray for myself. If that’s you, thank you.

{Side note: I don’t know if I’m better or worse, but I’ll be going back to the doctor. I am still having trouble breathing and tomorrow is my last day of antibiotics. Being sick is a bitch but then again, so am I.}

So, Here I Am

I think I’m going to live. Nothing is certain yet, but I’m going to remain cautiously optimistic. Last night I slept for two hours at a stretch and by process of elimination I learned that I am not allergic to my antibiotics just to Mucinex. The magic potion that brought about the extended periods of sleep?

A hot shower followed by Vicks VapoRub on my chest and throat. A hot cup of caffeinated tea (I haven’t had caffeine since Tuesday and I think that was the source of my headaches) and a Percocet. Two hours asleep then one awake to drink another cup of tea and reapply the Vicks as needed.

I’m trying not to sleep today because I’m hoping that I will be so exhausted tonight that I’ll sleep for three hours in a row. The rest of the house is on their own with leftover homemade chicken noodle soup and pizza while I charge my Zune and update my site. I sound like a man right now so I’m not answering the phone or speaking. And the words that I write on my pad of paper with my favorite pen?

I can’t.

That’s right. I can’t. Want a drink? Get it yourself because I can’t. Want something to eat? Get that too because I can’t. Need clean underwear? Throw laundry in because I can’t. Need to be entertained? Make puppets and entertain yourself because I can’t.

Why can’t I?

The doctor said to do the bare minimum. He said if I want to live to see my next round of chemo and my next appointment I will stop trying to do everything and take care of everyone and start taking care of me. (He’s a smart man!)

So, here I am. Doing nothing. Being sick. Hating every single second of it.

Sick Day Number Three and No Hope In Sight

The Knight was kind enough to pick up some Nyquil and Mucinex at the pharmacy last night, so I took it. I figured that if nothing else the Nyquil would knock me out since I haven’t slept for more than an hour at a stretch since Tuesday. Wrong.

So every hour almost on the hour last night I was up to pee or cough or attempt dying. I was successful only on the peeing part not because my body was cooperating but because I think I drank too much yesterday to try to stay hydrated. Every hour like clockwork the headache woke me up and every hour I would climb over the mountain that is my husband to trek to the icebox that is our bathroom. Does this sound fun to anyone?

Finally at four this morning I gave up. I sat downstairs and tried to eat something so that when six came I could take yet another dose of antibiotics. Really, I didn’t think I was asking for much. Apparently I was wrong.

As soon as The Knight walked out the door I ran for the bathroom and began hours of non-stop vomiting. Even chemo days weren’t so torturous! A call to my physician confirmed that I can now add two more medications to my list of allergies.

Honestly, my face is bruised and my throat is raw, so tell me what else is there? Surely death would cost less and be far more enjoyable than this never ending bullshit that has become my life. And for the record, it has never taken me this long to recover from anything. Not ever. And I don’t like it, not one bit.

Still Sick and Feeling Less Than Beautiful

I’m still feeling like death warmed over. I’m full of antibiotics and things that I shouldn’t be taking in an attempt to feel better. No one knows what I’d give for some solid hours of sleep right now. (Thanks for all your well wishes! They really made me smile.)

Last night I mentioned to The Knight that I want to have bariatric surgery if I go into remission. He is against it, period. I knew he would be, but I wanted to let him know that it’s important to me. I’m only thirty and I’ve already battled cancer. Seeing the words “morbidly obese” on my medical records was enough to cement the decision in my mind. I know that my husband loves me for who I am and he says I’m beautiful, but I don’t feel it.

Am I wrong?

Sick

I’m sick again. Strep throat and pneumonia with a raging fever. I am so tired I can’t even see straight and the pain is unbelievably intense- and not in a good way. On top of all this I feel so guilty that The Knight had to take the day off to take me to the doctor and take care of me. I know he doesn’t mind, but I feel just dreadful that he’s always taking care of me.

Blah.

Sorry for the whining. I’ll be back when I feel better.