Chemo Class

I'd recap the day, but have a hard time believing it's been just a day. Or that the last month has been just a month, I feel disoriented, like I went for a short drive and in 10 minutes wound up 1,000 miles from home. I'm not sure sure how I got here, and barely recall where I came from -- normalcy, I came from normalcy or my chaotic version of it. But now I'm plunked smack dab in a foreign land where nothing adds up {even with a calculator}. The new norm is no norm.

I started the day with grumpy boys and no milk in the fridge and a 7:40 a.m. meeting with the Oncologist to discuss "the plan" with my trusty note-taker who's missing work for this {thank you CA}, next thing I know I'm meeting with a social worker discussing my kids and why I haven't seen my father in 10 years {she approves, I'll skip the adjective} and then I'm touring a chemo facility and scheduling appointments for a two hour Chemo Class on Friday where I get handouts of all the impending conditions that should spur me to the emergency room. Then I'm making an appointment for next week to have a port surgically placed under my skin wedged into a vein.

I finally get home, shower and meet a friend who also needs her driver's license renewed so we do that {thanks DH} and while there, Griffin texts, he wants me to pick him up at school, he's not sick, he just needs to be at home. but I can't pick him up, usually I drop everything to accommodate, but i can't, there's too much to drop and the sound of smashing would be too long and loud, so he gets home on his own and wants to go out to lunch with me, I'd love that, it's been our little treat when he's off, but Jonah has school, but what exactly is he doing home today? This place doesn't work like the old place where Griffin goes to school without a second thought, he goes to school sick because he doesn't want to ruin his perfect attendance record. I can't go to lunch because the clock is ticking and I have to get into the studio to get a little work done, because I got a big wholesale order which is great, and there are a few stores I need to stock up so I at least have some consignment checks coming in but not much gets done, because Jonah's school bus will be coming soon. My car tires need air.

It's Wednesday, Dad's night, so Jonah's supposed to be at the after school program, but he's too stressed, because in this place, he doesn't like school anymore and has chosen to come to work with me instead until pick up time... so back to the studio because it's farmer's market night and the gallery is open. In between rushing around, I'm receiving birthday wishes and small gifts which seem surreal, birthday? what does that mean?... irrelevant, does not compute.

Even less so because the only ones who don't know it's my birthday are my own children, because their father never tells them... not even when she's cancer-mom... it doesn't occur to him to take them shopping even for a card, no, that would entail an effort, forethought, inconvenience, it might require a conversation with them, no, he likes to get home and pop a cork and relax. In fact, while it's his weekend coming up to have the boys, he's asked me to have them saturday night because he needs to unwind "burn off some steam" with men from work, scotch and cigars.

I'll be reviewing my cancer class notes, no time for scotch and cigars for me. This is a strange place I've landed. Need to fill those orders, but I'll be working all day Saturday in the Gallery, and next week holds a follow up with the genetic counselor on Tuesday and surgeon on Friday, oh yes, and that minor surgical procedure on thursday which I'm told will knock me out for a day. And that big wholesale order which is swell and makes me happy, but I've barely produced anything in a month and how do I fit in work around all these appointments when the school bus keeps coming at 2:45?

I went out tonight and it was fun, so little time until i'm immuno-suppresed but then I came home and so many phone messages and emails, another Craftopia in little more than a week... details, details, so much to do and chemo starts two days after Craftopia, two appointment filled weeks and I really just want to go to the Apple store and get my iPad because that's my happy thing, but when? when am I going to get there? and how the fuck did I get here?

As I was out tonight, I had a margarita and pretended it was summer. It's not summer. In this crazy place I feel fine, I've rarely felt better, my blood work is perfect, I'm healthy, I want to meet a man and go on a fun date, hold hands, put my head on his shoulder. Small things, simple things, and it's my time, I'm fine, I'm in the game like everyone else, living my life, except that suddenly I'm not and I have to go to chemo class.