145.6

I made it to the spa this week. A dear friend came over, shopped for my groceries, and cleaned my house. So, I made it to the spa. I enjoyed lunch al fresco on a lovely spring day, read mindless girly magazines, and let someone grind my back to a pulp in the name of relieving stress. I am ever so grateful and would do it all again. The thing is...a day at the spa is just that - a temporary escape. What I really desperately need is to discover a way to live joyfully every day in my life just as it is.

I finally decided it was time to start the antidepressants. I really didn't want to. I've been through lots in my life and always managed to stay upbeat and positive without any medical assistance. But yesterday, I realized that I was moping and whining and criticizing and sitting on the pity pot and eating crap and having mini-anxiety attacks. I don't want to do any of those things any more. And so far, life is still really hard, so I'm going to try some medical asssitance.

145.6 is what Dalton weighed today at City of Hope. Before he got sick, when he was running every day and eating right, he weighed 188. My heart felt like it dropped 3 inches in my chest when I saw that number. But then I'm not sure what I expected. Dalton asked for a wheelchair when we arrived at COH and rated his pain 8 out of 10. Then when the doctor asked Dalton how he was doing, he replied in a hoarse, slurred voice "I'm just impatient. I want to be healed and be done with this." I just sat there and stared at the door while the doctor answered, "Your cancer isn't curable. They tried their best, but when it spread to the liver, it became incurable." Dalton just nodded and said "Ok."

He doesn't talk much these days. He'll talk even less now that they upped his pain meds again. It's not that he isn't social or doesn't want to share. It's just that he's high and his faculties are compromised. He's physically here, but most of the time he's mentally somewhere else. I battle resentment on this issue. I desperately want him to be free from pain, but he's my husband, my best friend. I've already lost him physically and now I'm losing him mentally and spiritually. It frustrates him as well, but we've almost reached the point where he's only aware of it if I point it out. If I could just learn to suck it up and nod when he includes me in a conversation he's having with someone who isn't in the room, he'd be better off. I'm trying. Really, I am.

There is more to post, of course, but I'm falling asleep and that is a very good thing. Talk more later.