Debridment, financial worries, the other shoe
So, I saw Dr. F again on Tuesdays as per our standing routine. She decided to take some skin off from under my breast (that’s not a sensitive area…) with a pair of tweezers. As a nurse, I know this is what’s supposed to be done. When you expose the new, pink skin, full of granulocytes to the surface, the skin repairs itself better, heals more quickly and thoroughly.
However, as a patient, I learned why it’s painful to have anyone messing with a part of your body that’s got a wound of any sort. So, now it looks a bit like a scalding from boiling water. And it stings like crazy. A stinging that is accompanied by a fierce itch that can’t be scratched, because if you even touch it lightly, the pain is searing. Ah, the dichotomy.
I found out today that my financial aid application was held up because of tax returns. Because George’s company bought themselves out from under their parent company back in 2000 or 2001, and offered shares to its employees, our tax returns take forever. Seriously—we file around November every year, because the accountant at his work has to set up a whole financial thing, a full binder, for each and every employee that bought into the company.
So, those of you that are students know that the sooner you file your FAFSA„ the more likely you are to get money. Some people have the good fortune to be able to file their taxes way in January, as soon as the FAFSA forms are available, and they get a far better chance at getting financial aid to attend college, than say…people who file on April 15. OR those of us who file in NOVEMBER.
A couple of years ago, I did my best guestimation, and I qualified for financial aid. My gpa was good enough and the nursing major qualified me for a few grants that helped me make ends meet in New York. (Did I mention I lived in an 8x10 room, with no kitchen for a year? Paris Hilton was complaining about her claustrophobic cell which was 10x12 and all I could think was “wow…what I could do with all that extra space!”)
So, now I’m waiting for some sort of info from the FAFSA people, to see if I can go off to college or not—I’m not sure at this point what I’d do if I don’t get aid. It’s not like I can scrounge up the money for an Ivy League. Or have anything to sell that would provide the cash in time—the house, maybe…but the market isn’t that great and it would sit on the market roughly until I’d be graduating. I’m on pins and needles over THAT.
I’m also approaching the end of radiation treatment, and thank you JESUS. I’ve been so fatigued that I need to take two naps per day now to get through the day. Yesterday, I was so tired I couldn’t even talk, or move my hand to scratch my nose on the car ride over to treatment. I want to just lay in bed for a month and try to recover from all this. I wish I could hibernate, I’m so tired. I’ve never, EVER been so tired, even during my architecture thesis, during which I slept about a total of 2 hours spread over a week, in 15 minute cat naps, in order to finish.
And after the last treatment is delivered…then what? The myriad follow up appointments, the “now what” questions… So, now what? Just waiting around for cancer to come back? Lance wrote about this in his book and it’s a definite survivorship phenomenon—the fear that grips you after you’re all done with treatment. I feel it. What have I got? Five years? Ten? Twenty? Even 20 doesn’t sound like much, really, if you stop and think about it.
Tell yourself you’ve got 20 years left, and think of how much you could or could not get done, or how far you’ve come in 20 years…where were you 20 years ago? Some of you were barely out of diapers, but others of you can think back clearly…I was just in my first apartment, with my then fiance, George. We were learning how to communicate so that we could understand each other (something we still struggle with, as every couple does.)
Twenty years ago I was 22, and had grand plans for taking over the world—everything was a brainstorm that could net us millions (my friends were big thinkers, too.) We were unstoppable (except for an obvious lack of start up money.) Art Galleries, movie plots, song ideas, new bands would be created overnight and 10 or 12 songs would be put down on tape for rough ideas of the next big musical movement out of San Francisco. Not only that, we were immortal. We not only didn’t think about anything bad, we were sure that bad things happened to other people, that we lived some sort of charmed life. As I grew older, I realized this is common thinking among young adults.
Have 20 years really sped by so quickly? It seems like just yesterday. A week after my birthday will mark the anniversary of my brother’s death; he has been gone for 25 years. My mom died a week before my birthday; she has been gone for 5 years. April is a rough month for me.
Spring, in general, is always bittersweet. The snow melts, and gives way to spring. The grey, rainsoaked clouds give way to puffy light white ones, and the sky is a gorgeous shade of blue that you can never remember in the depths of winter, no matter how hard you try.
The symbolism isn’t lost on me. I thought about it all winter, as I was going through chemo…some day—spring will return.
Now, I only wonder what will bloom.
