The Wall

Every cancer patient who’s ever taken chemo knows about the Wall.

It’s out there—lurking around the corner—just waiting to remind you that chemo doesn’t f***ing play. It can show up once, twice, or stick around to let you know things are about to get real for a long-ass time.

Yesterday, I slammed right into it.

Clue #1: Standing up, minding my own business, feeling like my body was about to collapse straight to the floor.

Clue #2: My personal favorite—great waves of liquid exiting my body from all possible orifices, burning like I was sliding down a razor blade the whole way.

When that was over, I slept five more hours like a baby. (There’s always a blessing somewhere, right?)

The rest of the day was almost normal. I ate. I kept it down. I slept well last night—though don’t get the idea that sleep was some natural miracle. It came courtesy of prescribed medication. I took the pills. I slept. I was happy with that.

This morning, I’m trying to figure out if I’m still clinging to the Wall. Dizzy when I stood up—clue? Spilled a glass of water and felt exhausted cleaning it up—another clue?

And then I thought of the hundreds of thousands of people who were taken on death marches by their enemies—tired, confused, sick, exhausted—yet still driven forward by the will to live.

I have that will to live too.

If I keep meeting the Wall day after day, I’m not going to give up. But I know I’m going to need your encouragement along the way.

And if someone could whip up some real mashed potatoes like Grandma used to make—and a bowl of real brown gravy—and drop them off, I’m sure it would help me fight the Wall. (Or maybe it would just fly right through me. Either way, it would taste like heaven going down and that would be good enough for today.)

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