Part V

I have described a lot of what was happening to my body physically. It was a very difficult time with having discomfort of skin burns and my surgery really took a toll on me. I was having trouble breathing with the tumor swelling and dieing and I was throwing up much of the time. I ate but still manged to lose 26 pounds over about six weeks. I was given medicine to take before the treatments but it really didn't help that much. Coming home in the car was terrible. One day as I went to pick my son up from the camp I began to throw up on the porch. The lady who opened the front door said something to the woman about perhaps I was an alcoholic. I was so outraged and began to lecture her about cancer and how she should not judge people when she had no idea what was happening.
During the radiation I became fearful of the machine. I began to have nightmares that the machine would not turn off. In my dreams (alone in this concrete (I believe lead lined) room I was doomed to be irradiated to death. I told my doctor and he told me this was a common dream. During the treatments I would count in my head at first and they seemed to take an eternity and I never felt so alone when they closed the door to leave me there.
I began to talk to the Lord. I would tell Him that if he were with me I knew I was not alone. I would sing choruses I remembered from church. I would think about my blood counts and my low immune system and I would pray that I would not get sick so I could finish my treatments. Mostly I prayed that God would allow me to raise my son. This was never a concerete time but I think I kept saying if I could only live until he started school...then I raised that to when he graduated grammar school. I tried to bargain with God. All the time I knew deep inside that whatever God's will was I was powerless to change it. All I could do was try to get myself ready for if that time came. I was struggling with being hurt by friends and family who I felt could have helped me more. Each day after radiation treatments my mother would drop me off and go to her house. I would go into the bathroom where I would remain for hours and have toys there to entertain myself as I was too sick to do anything else. Sometimes I would be sick for hours. When my husband got home I tried to have some kind of dinner for he and my son and I stupidly tried to keep my house up to my standards. I didn't have visitors and in hindsight this was a real waste of my valuable energy. It was the summer and I didn't have air conditioning. I did have a nice patio out back with a fenced in area and on my better days my son would play on his little tricycle and I would sit on the steps and take in the flowers. I would savor those moments and tell myself that this would pass. Eventually it did.