An ancient philosopher once said: "You can't always get what you want"
You know how the rest goes. Three weeks ago I had reached an awkward stage of cancer I hadn't quite seen coming. I was feeling stronger, I went on walks- each day longer, and held my head higher. I had lost that hollow look that goes with extreme sickness and visitors expecting to see me sallow and wheel chair bound exclaimed "you look so…good!" maybe almost a little disappointed in general lack of myopia. My doctor visits tended towards the positive and boring and I looked forward with glowing eyes to the rolling, rosemary scented hills of Tuscany that beckoned around the corner, complete with my very own air conditioned villa. Heaven. I would be surrounded by my best friends in the middle of the world's greatest cheese and salumi tradition, renting a house up the street from a pasticceria; steps up the road from the medieval walls of the home of opera's greatest composer Giaccamo Puccini. There I would leave behind the evil dust of this sickness and live la dolce vita in the Italian sunshine. Down a few pounds from my sickness i'd wear my favorite sundresses, stroll the piazzas, eat gelato without a care in the world. It was getting hard to be depressed with life, with this dream so near my worries and problems were little ones, I could almost see the turn up ahead, the right turn back towards normal.
Then one day, breakfast didn't agree with me. I threw up violently all morning. I lay around exhausted all afternoon sore and somehow still vaguely sick. It happened the next day too. And the next. I couldn't keep food down the entire week. I was weak and sharp cramps wracked my left side, under my ribs while my traitorous cancerous liver ached on the other side. I'd clutch my sides in a crazy bear hug when I threw up but it didn't stop the convulsions.
Meanwhile, the deadline for my social security and medicare applications was two days away. I had let it sit, dealing with the sickness all weekend and had almost learned to live with it, blocking off my mornings for violent illness and trying to fit it what little activity I had energy for in the evenings. On the last day, my aunt took me to the copy shop with my piles of documents identifying who I was 5 ways from sunday, explanations of transactions on my bank statements, pages upon pages proving I was certified broke, unemployed, sick as a dog, on my last legs, and desperately in need of the good charity of good old uncle sam, please and thank you all in triplicates for the three different offices that would then allow themselves a full 90 days to review my eligibility for aid. We mailed it all off in manila envelopes and headed home. I was exhausted and sore, I hugged myself around the waist, holding my innards close as we drove home.
When we arrived i took my folder of originals and headed inside. I had made it 5 or so steps inside the house when a searing yellow bolt of pain hit me out of the blue underneath the left ribs. It took my breath away and it didn't come back. I gasped shallowly through a pain that refused to quit; it had taken up residence on my left side and intended to stay. I panted in panic and whimpered, my aunt and my parents conferred worriedly, they decided it was gas bubbles, trapped from the immovable dry tract that was my lower GI, immobilized by days, weeks, months of pills and not enough laxatives. They told me to breathe, that it would soon pass and I closed my eyes and tried to squeeze the air in past the pain, to breathe past the pain. Anna had promised to make the long trek out to visit and loyally insisted on keeping our date even though I called and offered her a rain check in light of how badly I was feeling. I waited for her with that same shallow breath, wondering when the pain would pass.
She arrived and we tried various distractions, watched some TV, talked and laughed but nothing could detract from that fire under my ribs. It seemed to be getting worse; no pressure would relieve the stabbing pain and I could only get my words out 2 or 3 at a time. I breathily called over my mother and told her it was time: I was giving up and going to the ER. The drive was excruciating. Every bump and turn rocked my world, I couldn't remember having been in so much pain and remaining conscious before. Stars danced in front of my working eye and even through the blur of my ruined right eye from the oxygen deprivation- I couldn't get enough air past that pain. By the time we arrived I thought I just might die. They asked me my name and birthdate and it took me three breaths to get the words out. The sent me straight into triage. The nurse asked me my symptoms calmly and I begged for an IV and pain meds. She was a little prim in her response as she hooked me up to the blood pressure cuff but she trailed off when she clipped the oxygen counter to my finger, I was down in the 74 range unable to bring in enough oxygen to breath properly. They sank an IV line in me quickly then a second in the other arm. As afraid as I am of those large gauge needles with their sharp "clicks" I offered up my elbows readily and within the next five minutes the nurse had returned and flushed my IV before injecting a shot of dellotid (and then a few more of the same) bringing a blessed relief at long last.
They sent me through x-rays and ct scans before bringing me back to tell me I had a large pulmonary embolism, a blood clot, in my left lung which had caused all the pain and trouble breathing. They checked me in for in-patient care that night and turned me into a bed a few floors up where I lay propped up in bed full of tubes and beeping machines. My nurse, a tall blonde lady, came and gave me my pills for the evening before another hit of pain killers through the IV. The medicine shot through my veins in a warm whoosh and brought with it a welcome creeping fatigue that sank into a deep desperate sleep.
to be continued
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