A Pain in the Neck

After the doctor had tried the debulking surgery but then discovered too many tumors and closed me back up, I kept falling asleep from medication and exhaustion. Each time, I woke up, I’d have to remember that the surgery didn’t go well. “Your tumors are still all there,” I had to tell myself. “There is nothing you can do.”

It seemed so surreal to be sitting here in recovery with no hope of getting better. I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn’t leaving to go home, but to hospice. I’d hopefully crossed out hospice on my calendar when I scheduled my surgery.

The surgery revealed lots of small tumors threaded throughout my bowels. That explains why my symptoms were so terrible, but the scans didn’t show much. The tumors had been hiding.

“You can’t open her back up and take them out?” a friend asked this morning as a last resort.

No. It’s not an option.

Today was hard. Today I was more cognizant and had to admit defeat. Today, on my way to hospice, I stopped by and visited the cats and my apartment for the very last time. (Cats are allowed at the facility but cats don’t like to travel.) I hurriedly packed some clothes and said goodbye to three very specific pieces of my heart. In between this, I sobbed at my boyfriend.

I don’t like being like this, so sad. On my way to the hospital, when I was optimistic about the surgery, I chattered away about fun stuff I’d done while doing chemo or going through treatment. As we passed by Lincoln Center’s film center, I recalled that I’d spent all day watching a season of Breaking Bad leading up to the premiere of the series’ last season and how fortunate I was to be bald to be Walter White for Halloween. I’ve tried to have fun no matter what and now all I can do is cry, particularly at my boyfriend, who I will hate leaving. I would have done anything for a few more months with him, and I hate that I have to go. I wanted forever and I should have been more specific, because my forever was only six months. I could have an abdomen full of tumors and be stapled together while being told that I don’t have very long to live and he smiles at me and I feel like the luckiest person in the world. All he has is a gaunt lady who looks at him and bursts into tears.

I don’t want him to remember me this way. I don’t want anyone to remember me like this.

I would like to go sooner rather than later, but I’m afraid to pull the trigger and stop the electrolytes and go. It will be quick.  I physically can’t go on much longer. There were times when I didn’t think I would make it during those two weeks until surgery. My body is giving out.

In the end, my heart will stop, but it feels broken now. I don’t want to leave the cats. I don’t want to leave my boyfriend. I don’t want to leave my mom. I don’t want to leave my friends. This is very different than how I felt in May of 2018, when my boyfriend at the time wanted me to die so he could be with his Pilates instructor in London (it worked out for him in the end even though I didn’t die then). Then I didn’t care whether I lived or died because I felt broken. This time, I don’t want to go, and I know that makes me much luckier. My life is so much better than the way it was.

My friends decorated by room with photos. I’ve had a good life. I can’t comprehend that it’s going to stop so soon. How did this happen?

I’ve been taking comfort in everyone’s kind words. I made it to 42, my friend Anne pointed out. “According to Douglas Adams, 42 is the answer to life, the universe, and everything. So nice job getting this far. The enemy’s gate is down.”

My friend Seanan says, “You are the most alive person I know, and I am beyond glad to know you.”

My friend Anna said, “You’ll live on for much longer than you know, in one form or another. You are so loved.”

I’ve received countless messages of love.

I asked my boyfriend what he thought happens after we die. He says you live on in other people’s memories, and I won’t be forgotten.

Still, the end looms close, and I feel like I’m not ready.