The Minutiae of Life

March 21, 2022

Now that Ren is well into chemo (3^rd infusion tomorrow) I hold on to my sanity through the minutiae of life. To live another day, to keep on going, we have to eat, drink, sleep, and attend to other daily functions.

 The temptation is to drop everything, to focus on the symptoms, the progression, the prognosis, the accommodations needed. But in between all this, I cling to the small things: phone calls, successes and trials of the grandchildren, travel plans, and work news for my children and friends. Our household cooking, cleaning, shopping, everyday life, still goes on and that is encouraging. When he sleeps, I can sink into the writing, forget my worries while my mind plots and plans and moves my characters around. Just like reading, I can escape for a short while.

Part of the accommodations of this cancer treatment is coping with Ren’s depression. He has said he will find a way to end his own life before it gets too bad. I sympathize with his view, but I have a quibble about what “too bad” means. I also find myself nagging him to do what he has been told to do, e.g.

1.      Rinse his mouth four times a day with the prescription mouthwash. He insists once a day is enough. Then complains about his mouth hurting.

2.      Drink enough water. He sips. For one day he drank enough and felt much better. Then he got tired of drinking and started sipping again. Dehydration causes fatigue.

3.      Force himself to eat even if he doesn’t feel like it because his mouth hurts. Without eating he gets weaker and weaker. And fatigue sets in.

4.      Walk, just a little, on days he feels better. “Two blocks down and two blocks back,” I said. He shrugs and doesn’t do it. And gets weaker and weaker.

 

He also keeps threatening to end the chemo because the side effects are too difficult. The sore mouth prevents him eating properly, and he’s lost a lot of his sense of taste. (See #1 above) He does take the nausea pill when he needs to. It works. He complains of fatigue all the time. (See #2 and #3 above.)

And so it goes.