Down the Rabbit Hole

One of the drugs used during chemo required another drug to minimize its effects. Dexamethasone was worse than the bone pain it reduced and I usually refused it. A few times I couldn't bear the pain, though, and the awful depression and insomnia were high prices to pay.

This past week brought the beginning of dental work I had hoped to avoid: a bridge. Just the sound of it makes my hair seem grayer. After cutting into two relatively healthy teeth to create the anchors for the bridge, temporaries were placed and I was sent home to wait for the lab to build my lovely bridge. Every hour saw an increase in the throbbing until I caved in and returned to the dentist a mere seven days later. No, nothing wrong a little prednisone wouldn't fix. Prednisone, kissing cousin to dexamethasone. Better believe the pain was intense or I wouldn't have agreed to it. And it wasn't dinner time before I was slipping down the rabbit hole, into that pitch of melancholy from ChemoLand Days. This morning even the sound of thirty birds singing in the lemon tree cannot stop me from baseless tears. The pain is emotional, from that solitary place I inhabited four years ago and suggests that maybe I haven't finished grieving. Lost health? Innocence? Days without a chance thought of cancer?

I'm refusing to surrender to a drug-induced nap. I'm sure that's the right course of action. Keep on keeping on, you know.