The Kübler-Ross Grief Cycle

During this brief respite where I've managed to summon just enough energy, I wanted to try to sneak in another post while I can still manage it. The past week has been particularly hellish. The buoyancy of spirit I felt in the first two weeks has been replaced by a smothering fatigue, sometimes excruciating pain, and a feeling of despondency over the reality of all this. I've been laid so low. I had to ship the twins off to Zhivago and Toni, my brother and his wife, in order to ensure that they get the love and attention they need during this time. The twins are oblivious to all this, and that's exactly how I want it to be because I cannot imagine trying to explain why this is happening or how I could possibly shield them from my episodes of pain and exhaustion. We had to wait until the first day of summer for the winter to finally be over, and the kids deserve to be outside playing in the sun instead of cooped up in the house with their seriously-ill mother. Winston has been contributing as much he can, but he is working full-time and has some of his own serious issues to deal with.

We have this ongoing joke about BC (Before Children) and AD (After Diapers). For instance, we are nostalgic about all the free time we had BC or where all of our money goes AD. Now, BC is Before Cancer and AD is After Diagnosis. It makes all our previous complaints trivial and petty, doesn't it? In context, the things you find to complain about can be magnified exponentially under a more powerful microscope. Once you see how ugly things can look under a microscope, it makes you want to be blissfully ignorant again in the big picture of things.

If I could just get well again, I could put my entire existence into context and separate the petty from the precious. In the Kübler-Ross Grief Cycle, the fourth stage is one of desperate bargaining. In order, the stages are: Shock, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Testing, Acceptance. Is that where I am? It seems to me that I've been doing it backwards, actually.....I'm in the middle either way.

People don't joke around when they say that their life priorities get re-ordered after facing down their mortality. Should we wait for the trigger to be pulled before we do that? Or should we jump the gun and make things right in our life before the opportunity is taken away?

Side-effects after the fourth full week of treatment:
-fatigue
-bleeding
-raw, sunburned internal tissue from the radiation beams
-brown spots on my fingers and tongue from accumulation of chemo
-gastrointestinal discomfort
-loss of appetite
-dry mouth and sores
-constant feeling of urgency that mimics urinary tract infection