As usual, the chaos has gotten me. There’s been nothing for it but to put my arms over my head and look for the joy while trying to avoid all of the falling objects. There’s been plenty of joy to be found, but also some pretty big falling objects.
Namely, primarily, cancer. My mother’s chemo starts up again next week. At least she was not dependent on me for post-surgery care this time as the last time we went through this, I dropped her. It is both exactly as bad as it sounds and not quite as bad. See, they’d taken a lump out of her breast and she was home that same day. I was with her and she got up to go to the bathroom, but as she was trying to exit the bathroom, she fainted. I was there, but in the split seconds I had to react to the fact that her eyes were rolling back in her head, I also realized that if I grabbed her from the front, which was the only sensible thing to do, I was likely to cause much further pain in the area of her recently-operated-on breast. So I grabbed her awkwardly and couldn’t hang on – a fainting body is rather slippery and unwieldy – and she crumpled to the floor with her knees bent back in a way that only small children manage without pain. This happened in a constricted space, so pulling her legs out to lay straight was also problematic and my first priority. She came to before I could sort that one out, complaining about why I wouldn’t just let her sleep and batting me away as I tried to help her up.
I haven’t gotten over dropping my mother. Clearly.
This surgery, this tumor, they took out and kept her in the hospital in a state far away. I was not on hand to drop her. I will be making my way to her post first-dosage of chemo. How long does it take for one’s hair to fall out? When should I show up with a flaming-pink wig for her to wear in public? These are questions I hadn’t given much thought to, at least not for several years…
Anyway, she’s in a mood to fight so on we go with chemo and hair loss and the unknown. And a constant, perhaps more focused, quest for things to find joy in.
entropy: the other constant 