I'm still not dead.

Getting knocked down with cancer and brain surgery and not being able to read has definitely made it cut down the amount I write on my blog. That's kind of depressing, now that I'm thinking about it.

I finished the first round of chemo and radiation yesterday, and I guess I was expecting to wake up this morning, feeling just fabulous, and instead when I woke up, all I wanted to do was sleep...and then possibly sleep some more. Knowing that things may never get back to 'normal',to have it smacked in the face aren't exactly the same. So I'm tired, and still feels like shit. Yippy, right?

I can sort of read again now, about a thousand percent more than I could when I came home, at any rate. But what used to be enjoyable, and something I liked to do, now is just tedious and requires so much effort, that I don't even want to, most of the time.

I still have nightmares, and a lot of thing still hurts, even though I don't spend a lot of time telling that to anyone. There isn't really a point, because I keep getting the impression that this might just be the way my life is going to be now.

The truth is that I spend a lot of time crying, when there isn't anyone around to see. I have huge amounts of depression, and would just give up and stop doing anything at all, expect that everyones well-meaning concern. There are so many people who are just so *concerned* about how I'm doing, and how I'm feeling, and want to help, that even if I wanted to go and take a break for a while, and deal with stuff in my own way, they would all be upset, or offended, and the fallout wouldn't be worth it.

So I smile, and I do all the things everyone expects me to do, because it takes less energy than hiding out.

The "me" that I used to be, it's not even in here anymore. Maybe I felt this way the first time I was recovering, but I don't remember how that went. I don't really remember a whole lot about any of it, until I was recovered and felt fine and normal.

And I know that that it's only been three months, and that tumor was a lot bigger this time, and I should expect to have more problems, and I need to be patient, and things will get better. I *KNOW* this. But it's *my* life, and every day that what used to be normal, still doesn't improve, I get a little more pessimistic, and want to just give up.

I wouldn't blame people, the ones who have always read my blog, stopped following it. Pretty much all it's been for the last several months has been whining and complaining about my life, and feeling sorry for myself. I don't have any idea how much longer that's going to be this way.

I wish I knew how long *I* was going to be like this.

I'm home?

To it's been a long while, well maybe not so long, about three weeks, since I came home from my brain surgery. Things....didn't go the way everyone expected.

As I sit here typing, I cannot read. I also can't write anything with a pen. The reason that I type, is because some type of memory typing lets me do this.

The truth be told, I feel defeated, about pretty much everything most of the time. I go through each day more or less faking it, as though I'm alright. Well, I do until I fall apart, and then I cry. I can't even come up with the actual words I want, because I can't correctly spell them.

For all intents and purposes, I might as well be blind, only I can see. And it hurts me. I go to sleep, and I keep hoping that I will wake up, and I will be fine in the morning, but it keeps not hopening.

I have all these walkers and a canes and my balance is all screwballed, and I'm so fucking sleeping all the time, no matter what I do, and I just want to be DONE already.

I was supposed to go up there, and they were supposed to fix me, and I could come home, and go back to school, and everything would be normal again...and then now? This? This is not me...I'm not me anymore. And I hate it. I can't do anything for myself, and I hate it.

I think about lawsuits and chemo and radiation and still being sick for god only knows for you long, and a lot of the time I just want to give up utterly. I'm told that's all perfectly normal...yay. Which is kind of depression too.

This is probably not making sense anymore, because I kind of lost my train of thought...so I'll stop now...I just had to say SOMETHING, so that I could remind myself that I'm still in here, that I'm still me, even if it didn't seem that all the time...maybe I can't get my worlds out while I'm speaking, and maybe I can't use a pen....but maybe, eventually, I'll be able to be me again...if only still here....

where are all the updates lately? Its been a month!

Hey Anonymous, that's a fair question, so I figured that one deserved an honest answer. I've been somewhat busy for the last month, and I'll continue to be pretty busy for a while. Although "busy" is somewhat misleading. I've been asleep a good portion of the last couple of weeks, and before that, I was running back and forth to UCSF medical center, to see an oncologist, and my neurosurgeon. In May, I'll be back up there for a while, getting another open craniotomy, so they can remove another tumor from my brain. This one's quite a bit bigger than my original one, and there's talk about chemotherapy and radiation and all kinds of other fun things, including experimental treatment afterward, which *should* prevent another one from returning a third time, or so we all hope.

But that would by why there haven't been any postings, or any updates. When I got hope, I've been withdrawing from school, seeing some other doctors here, and then sleeping...a lot. To a certain amount it was just knowing what was going to be coming, and that sort of thing, and the rest is that the headaches have been getting worse, and it's been keeping me asleep more than awake. I get tired incredibly easily, and somewhat brain-foggy recently.

I know more this time, about how things will go when I wake up after surgery, so I'm keeping a journal, to tell me who I am, and to tell me the people I care about. Because I know they'll be working in the same region, it's a good chance, they'll erase the last six years, the same way they erased my earlier memories. Seemed prudent to give myself something to work with, when I wake up.

So, there you go, this is what's been going on with me...what's been going on with the rest of the Internet who follow my blog?

I'm not really driving a lot these days. I still have my license...I even changed my car insurance recently, for the first time in many many moons. But my car? It sits sad and lonely and unused. I don't really trust myself to drive it, so I don't. Every day, I think "maybe tomorrow", and then I lay down, and listen somewhat mindlessly to whatever plays on the television, or just go back to sleep without even trying to focus on a show or a film.

When I go somewhere, to a doctor's appointment, to a store, just to see a friend...someone else takes me, and my balance is so off that I'm using my cane nine times out of ten even just to walk from the door to the car. Even inside of the house, it's actually more safe to use it than not. It feels like the world is falling apart around me, which is somewhat frustrating.

I'm losing my words. Words were my life, the ability to string them together into phrases people liked to read, I was proud of that. And sometimes these days, I don't even make sense to myself...much less anybody else. All the notebooks in the world won't do me any good if I can't remember what I want to say, or how to write it down in a way that will make sense to the people around me.

Maybe it's stress. Maybe I've finally just hit the point of being so completely burned out that I need to just crawl into my little cave, and relax for a while, with no pressure on me. Maybe that's all it is. But somehow I doubt it. I've been down this road before. The mood swings, the headaches, the loss of speech, and the seizures. I know what all of those things are, and what they mean. And the truth is, I *am* tired. I've been tired. And I've been under so much strain that it's unbelievable, for so long that I really can't remember when I *haven't* been trying to keep it all together.

I can actually, vaguely, see an end in sight, to needing to hold it all together. And that might actually give me a sense of relief, and the ability to just sit down, and relax, and let it all go, and be taken care of for a while. That hasn't happened in a very, very long time. And that might be what I need.

I can't breathe, and I mean that in a very literal way. I've been having panic attacks, probably 15-50 times a day, that feels like I can't breathe, and I have to concentrate on unlocking my chest and relaxing all of those muscles, or I feel like I'm suffocating. I have pills for anxiety, but I can't really take them all day, every day, or I'd be more comatose than I already am.

So my solution to most of this was to start writing again, to get the fear out of my mind, and down somewhere else, so that I stop dwelling constantly on it. I learned that a long time ago, at least I'll have it out of my head. I'm taking all the steps I *can* take to handle all the rest, and that's as good as I can make it

I have people here, around me, who love me, and who are willing to take care of me if I need that. Who help me, and who understand me. I'm lucky about that.

Cravings, Desires, Fascination

You're always going to want what you don't have, right? And what do you crave? Well, it's kind of a self-fulfilling problem...a craving is something that as soon as you get, you won't want anymore. Because that's what a craving *is*. Something you don't have, something you want...something you desire desperately with your entire being until you have it. And then you move on to the next thing that you crave, because that's just how people are.

And that's kind of depressing to think about, because it would be so much more enjoyable for life, if you could go through it not craving things, but by choosing what you were fascinated by, and enjoying them. To look at things, and instead of craving them, to just become enraptured by them, and to love them, and focus on each part of the thing or person that you find interesting for their own merits.

If we stopped to smell the roses, so to speak, and really look at what we had around us, instead of just craving momentarily what we wanted, we would appreciated things and people more, instead of getting bored with everything about our lives, all the time.

Our disposable society that we've created, and the broken homes that are resulting from it is very sad, and I'm glad I had to stop, and consciously look around myself to see what I have, what I see, instead of just what I momentarily want...what I craved.

Evidently, I might be somewhat tacky, who knew?

As it turns out, I was actually talking about gift registries, or when it's appropriate to use them. Did you know that there are actually occasions that you'd be looked down on for registering for gifts? I'm pretty sure everyone knows the standard ones, sprogging, weddings, a new home.

But think about it: these days, most couples live together for quite a while before they get married. Just how many multiple toasters does a couple *really* need? Same deal for a new home. Most people who are moving into a new house pretty much have the majority of the things that they're going to need, and even if they don't, they're not going to have their friends ponying up for the new refrigerator that they're going to need. They're going to get a really nice bottle of wine, or some dishes, maybe. Which they probably already had, or possibly if they're combining a household, they've now got *three* of.

No, what people actually need, are gift registries for the newly divorced, who's moving into his/her new place, and now doesn't have any pots, pans, forks, knives, nothing of the basics. Much less any towels or anything else if it was really bad. *This* would be a much more practical housewarming party for a gift registry request, because honey, these people actually *need* some of those presents.

But nobody can ask for them. Because it'd be a social gaffe, and they're labeled as being grabby, and tacky for asking for presents. Now a new mother is inundated with gifts, and so will a bride...but a divorcee, who might actually *need* a toaster? She's shit out of luck, nor can she post a registry in her housewarming invite.

You know what? I say to hell with that. If you can beg for money and presents because you can shoot a fuck trophy out, to get presents, and you can add a line in your invitation for people to show up and watch you saunter down a rose petaled aisle, whilst begging for money and presents...why shouldn't a line be added asking for actual useful things if you've ended up having to rebuild your life after a shitty divorce? Or if you never got married, but you're out on your own, and moving into a new place, and don't have anything but hand-me-down stuff? Why the hell not? You deserve to celebrate being an adult, even if you need to ask to help acquire all the cool grown-up toys. Some of that stuff costs money :P

Just sayin'

Isn't jealousy a bitch?

So I was scanning some Facebook pages (yes, I know, a timewaster if there ever was one), and I noticed that somebody left a comment on a friend of mine's page, bitching that she'd had a glass of wine, and that she was jealous, because she didn't get to have alcohol.

And I laughed. And then I laughed some more...that's somewhere in the vicinity of me complaining about the fact that I don't "get" to drink...which technically, I don't, and shouldn't...of course, by the same token, I have enough prescription medication available to me at any given time to sink the Titanic, if I really wanted to be loaded to the gills, I probably could be.

And what I had to laugh about the most, is that the person who was doing the whining? Is more than 8 months pregnant, and still *takes* the same kind of narcotic medications that I'm currently on...and she smokes...and has, or at least had, a coffee addiction that was kind of scary. Now, granted, I have no idea if the coffee thing still holds true, but there are photos that are still online that shows she kept smoking, and kept using those narcotics for pain in spite of sprogging.

So, seriously...jealous, because my friend who had her single glass of wine? She had her baby four and a half months ago...he's nauseatingly healthy as a horse, and while it sucked to be her, she didn't do anything at all that could have resembled "fun" while she was carrying him.

*rolls eyes*

Yeah, I don't know..maybe there really should be some kind of test you have to pass to be allowed to get pregnant/have kids. It might at least slow down the stupidity factor of "but it's the cool thing to do" when it comes to procreation...especially if people are going to keep living a lifestyle that isn't even vaguely practical where children are concerned.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not the epitome of perfection on kids. Which is why I don't have one, nor am I currently spawning. I know I don't have the financial resources for an infant. Midnight feedings, diapers, all those sorts of things don't sound like a blast to me, and that's as it should be at the moment. Because I actually thought about it. I didn't look at my bestest friends all around me who were having kids, and decided I want to join the bandwagon, because I was jealous that everybody else had one.

The trouble with babies is that they're cute. They're cuddly. But you *can't return them*. Once you're done snuggling them, then you have to feed them, change them, clothe them, and actually pay attention to them...for like the next 12 years. After that, they want to ignore you, so it's pretty even-handed, so it's not as hard, but you can't just stick one in its bedroom, and expect to only play with it when you want to. It's not like a pet, where if you're annoyed, you can stick it in the other room until you let it out again.

All the people who coo at cats or dogs or whatever, and go "oh, I'm such a good parent to my animals" doesn't mean you're going to be a fabulous parent. I'm great with my cat...because when I'm fed up with his caterwauling, I can lock him in a bathroom, until he shuts up. I can't exactly do that with a toddler. It'd be cruel, AND illegal.

The cat isn't going to want to play with your video games, your computer, take your books and tear them apart, and color on them. The cat's not going to demand equal time for your attention, because he *can't*...but a child does require that attention, and if you don't give it to him, then you're going to have a psychologically dysfunctional child. There's no one to make up the household rules except yourselves, and no one to enforce discipline, except you. And if you fail it? Then it's all on you. You're the entire responsible party, for another human being.

And it was a choice that you signed up for, for the next twenty years. Is it sounding like fun yet? *You* have to teach that child right from wrong, and how to be a good person. Are you enough of an adult yourself to be able to do that? Are you a mature adult yourself, enough so, to parent another? Do you have the important answers to questions that he'll ask you, the ones that you still ask other people, because you don't know how to handle?

Because, quick, suddenly, *YOU* are going to be "that person"...the go-to-for-everything person...and if you screw it up, then what?

All this because it was the 'in thing' to do...Yeah, I think I'll keep my cat, and play some X-box, or maybe have a movie marathon...for the next two to five years. Then maybe I'll be ready to have a kid...when I'm financially and emotionally ready. Not when it was the "cool thing" to do. Not when I was still doing a balancing act on too many medications...and not when I was looking at other people and having to be jealous because somebody had a glass of wine that I didn't...