One is the Loneliest Number

Hello Darlings...

Well it has been a helluva week...

The Astros won the World Series (I am beyond elated by that)

and

I got a lovely stay in Memorial Hermann Medical Center hospital and was a vampire for about 24 hours while I received 4 units of blood.

I really was a vampire---I went in as pale as a Cullen (you will only get that if you have a daughter who was a teenager during the height of the "Twilight" obsession) and thanks to lots of lovely blood that beautiful humans donated I pinked back up and my levels rose up a bit.

So now I wait and let it all marinate (along with the Neulasta shot they gave me) and we hope that my platelets and hemoglobin and white blood cells rise up to normal levels.

I finished radiation (that's another big yay!) and I can honestly say I miss Dr. Angel and his staff so much...they really made what could have been awful into something that I did not dread each day. And Dr. Angel is pretty amazing at calming me the hell down when I start to lose it...I'm pretty sure I pushed him to his limits with my antics, tears, and my refusal to stop or slow down doing yoga.

Except that I have now stopped doing yoga

and spin

because you need red blood cells to carry oxygen so you can breathe and have energy and right now I'm still basically in the basement with all of that and I am used to living in the penthouse with my blood levels.

Plus I am not supposed to be around crowds---or basically any group of humans...

And boy howdy do I miss my spin and yoga...painfully so...

The Astros did not help matters with keeping me up at night cheering them on but tonight my house is oh so quiet.

I can hear the refrigerator running...

the only other sounds I hear are the AC running or Zulu meowing at me that he thinks he is starving (because he can see the bottom of his bowl) and the tv if I have it on.

I leave the tv on a lot...

because sometimes quiet is too quiet

and it feels so lonely.

I miss my kids...

I miss having a love to fuss over...

I miss not being so alone.

The hospital felt alone after my sweet friend KuteKaren2 left.

She was magnificent that day.

She took me to have my blood levels checked and when the nurse called and demanded that I return to the Med Center and be admitted to the hospital she didn't miss a beat and drove me home, helped me pack a bag and drove me right back to the hospital. She even got me dinner. She stayed with me until I was settled.

That my friends is a FRIEND...

She even knew that a Reese's peanut butter cup was just the magic I needed to face racing back to the Medical Center...

(because the nurse basically told me I HAD to get there without passing "Go" and collecting $200...I had to get there before 5:00 so that I would not have to be admitted thru the ER...but we got there at 4:45 and the lady in admissions was not in the mood to stay an extra few minutes so we were hustled off to the ER...with me in a mask)

I had lovely nurses taking care of me and plenty of friends messaging and texting me loving thoughts and well wishes but unless you have ever had a medical emergency and faced it alone you don't know how terribly lonely it feels to not have someone there to hold your hand.

KuteKaren2 was awesome at it...but she also had spent the better part of 9 hours hauling me across Houston and her dear hubby took on Mom and Dad roles that day so she could help me.

But once she left it felt very quiet and lonely unless the nurses were in the room with me.

I kept the tv on so that I wouldn't hear the whirr of the infusion machine (or it's awful dinging when it got unhappy with where I placed my arm or if the blood bag was empty).

It was rather disconcerting to see a bag of blood hanging from my iv pole.

More so than seeing a saline bag and maybe on par with seeing a bag with the word "poison" on it...

I looked at that bag of blood and said a prayer in gratitude to each human who donated blood so that I could get healthy.

I wanted so much to look over to the side of me and see some man who loved me telling me it was ok...or for some sweet man to hold my hand and say "it's gonna be ok honey...you can do this"...

I have a friend who I shall call The Writer (she's a marvelous writer) who last year found herself sick and alone in a South American country. She has always been single (but has had several loves) and is as independent as they come. I admire her ability to go alone to a foreign country and travel and explore by herself. I don't have the courage to do that. And when she became ill I worried about her and thought how lonely that must have been to be by herself in a land that was not her home. But she came through and I don't think the wanderlust will ever leave her.

I'm not that brave and I don't have it in me to go alone.

I don't want to explore Tuscany alone---I want to do it with someone I love by my side. I want to go to Florence with a man I love and see the Duomo with him and see him marvel at the Baptistry Doors...

I'm tired of doing it alone...

I have a lot of friends who are very content to be single.

I am sick of it.

And tonight when I cooked my dinner for myself and sat in my chair to eat I felt very very alone.

When my son left I tried eating at the table by myself.

It made me feel pitiful.

Like I was trying to make more of it than it was.

I do sometimes eat at the table but lately I find myself in my chair or with a tv tray and tonight it made me feel so very much alone.

Especially because it has been 6 years since I have had a man to cook for other than my son.

For some reason tonight it just felt lonely.

It felt sad to me to cut off the bit of steak I wanted to eat and to make the spinach...and I even decided to just eat at the island in the kitchen because Dragon had decided to occupy my chair.

I don't always feel that way but these last few nights it has...

it felt lonely watching last night's final game of the World Series alone with no one to get excited with when they won...

and yesterday when I went to the anesthesia clinic (to prepare for my hernia surgery that we all need to pray I still get) it felt lonely to answer the questions and say that my emergency contact was my beloved aunt and not give them the name of someone who calls me his love...

(but hey it was pretty nice to hear the nurse practitioner say that she didn't believe I was 52 and that I didn't look like someone who had been released from the hospital less than 24 hours ago)

For all of you who do it alone and don't mind it my hat is off to you...

But then again I only have a few sweet friends who have had to fight cancer without a spouse, partner, lover or boyfriend/girlfriend...they know what this is like and how hard it is...

it's hard enough to fight cancer

but it is harder still to come home after treatments and be alone with the fear and the pain...

Mary Tyler Moore made living as a single divorced gal look so fun and glamourous...

it's not...

at least for me...

and when I was laying in the hospital bed with the blood of some sweet human that was not me coursing through my veins it struck me that it was the most intimate thing that had happened to me in years---the blood of another giving my body strength and health...

I've made no secret of it that I am tired of being alone...and as more time passes I worry that maybe I am alone because I might not beat this.

I have tried like hell not to have any thoughts of not living through this but I've also faced some very real facts that the cancer I have is quite deadly and being at Stage 4 makes it harder.

Dr. Angel and Dr. Rockstar are doing their damndest to cure me...and I have so much faith in them...

but this past week I have allowed doubt to creep in and steal some of my strength from me...

and when I wake up scared as hell in the middle of the night Dragon does not understand why Mama is crying...

I won't give up but I will admit that these next 5 weeks will be full of terror for me until I hear how my CT scan looks...and I know Dr. Angel well enough now to know just by looking at him if he will have good or bad news for me.

I'm trying as hard as I can not to let doubt get to me...and to not let fear grip me...but it does...

I had so many people tell me that I would find a man after I raised my son...oh I heard that so much I wanted to scream (in fact I think I did at poor JayVee who did not deserve it)...

I took my son to college and less than 3 months later I was a cancer patient...

at this time last year I was about to have the D&C and biopsies that changed my life...I was praying with all my might that the bleeding was all because of fibroids and that the word "cancer" did not apply to me...

so for the last year I have known that I was not exactly dating material...

and in about 5 weeks I will get the news if my treatments have worked...

and
I
am
terrified

I am tired of being brave

I am tired of fighting so hard

I am tired of coming home to an empty house and an empty life

I love my kids more than life itself but they have their own lives now

I love my students with all my heart but they are not my children

So yeah....all the positivity that I try so hard to convey----it's sorta running out of gas...

I have a rough week ahead...it's show week...and it means long days and late nights (but I wouldn't trade it for the world because I love my students so much) and hopefully I will get my hernia surgery on the 13th...

but right now I feel like I am on a merry go round that is also a rollercoaster and I really really want to get off...

it's been quite a year and I am ready for some change...

I don't know what that change is (it will not be moving to a new city or leaving my job with my students) but I need something to change...

So I am asking for prayers...

for my strength both physically and emotionally and spiritually...

I need my body to start to heal and regain the strength I have relished having...

I know that this sinking spell I am having is a combination of all that I have been through and a lack of my beloved exercise...

but right now I need someone to give me the strength that I don't have....

I'm tired of doing it alone...

I know I will be back to my chipper cheery self soon...rest and recovery will do that...and I miss hugging my students (my white cell count has made that off limits) because I do feed off of their love and support...

It's hard to do this at all...

and harder still alone...

the refrigerator is humming and the cats are quiet and I would give anything to hear my son playing his video game or to hear a man say "honey it's time for you to get to bed"...

I'm sorry this is such a downer blog but I have always told you I would be honest and transparent and tonight when I sat in my chair and cried from being so tired of all of this crap and doing it alone I knew I had to get my feelings out....

life is a series of challenges with periods of beautiful time that is easy....

sometimes the challenges are fast and furious like a crazy winding road and other times the challenges are just tiny little speed bumps...

my life this last year has been spent climbing Everest...and I relish the short periods of rest at each base camp...

I have finally gotten to where I see the top...

it's reachable...

if only I don't run out of oxygen...

or slip...

but it's there...it's 5 weeks away...

and then I have to climb down the mountain and descend slowly to make sure I don't get sick again...

but when I reach base camp---what is there?

and that is what I am looking for after I summit...to go back down and find out what or who is waiting for me...because you can't climb the mountain and stay there...

so pray for me as I reach for the summit...and pray for me as I climb back down that when I get to the bottom what I find is a new place in life...

Inspiration Song: "One Is the Loneliest Number" by Three Dog Night...because unless you have lived it you can't say you know it...one is the loneliest number...

Bye Darlings---I have hit a rough patch...I'll get over it but right now it is very slippery...pray for me...