Nadir at the Oasis

Today, my body chemistry reaches nadir, the lowest point in the chemo process. 

This means that my blood counts are most likely at their lowest, and that my body is feeling its most dragged out. It means I am at the highest risk of infection, as I have nothing left to fight it with. And yes, it is true that everything feels achy. My energy, which is better than it was, is still very marginal. I don't think I'll be laying any hardwood flooring, or installing wiring, today.

but the hope is that my cancer is feeling equally poorly, and maybe even considering taking a vacation from me. Frankly, I don't think I've done a lot to make it feel all that welcome, So at the very least I hope it is drawing back its claws and rocking itself to sleep.Yes, I have little to fight it with, but hopefully it has little fight left in it. 

The goal now is to regrow the white and red blood cells and have the healthy bits left inside me take charge. I have a feeling those healthy bits are dispersed and feeling alone, but hopefully I can marshal them to join together. It makes sense: I've been organizing the activities of this body for 63 years.The cancer, on the other hand, is new at it - though it does seem to have an advanced telecommunications network all established.  (I can only hope it was designed by AT&T, as opposed to a company that knows what it is doing.)

What I appear to have is a beat-up aluminum flyer saucer. After getting up this morning, I was sitting on the couch wondering if there were other rooms to the house or if we had moved into a two room trailer while I was asleep, when I suddenly felt myself outdoors, in snow. he snow was pristine, except for the inevitable dog tracks, and a long hill wen down from the driveway of the Montessori School toward the stone wall at the edge of the Ferrari's property. 

My siblings were not there, so I didn't have to worry about being hunted or made into a moving target. I put the disk down on the snow (once again wondering: "Do the two little holes go in the front or the back") and I climbed aboard. A slight push, and I started slowly down the hill. 

That hill was always deceptively seep, and as the saucer moved forward, it picked up speed. The two straps were intact, so I could hang on, and I felt the air stinging my eyes and making my nose run as I flew toward the bottom of the hill. I always thought that flying saucers had it all over sleds - sleds were far too controllable, and you could go where you wanted to go. The flying saucer took you on its journey, and you were along for the ride. 

Eventually, I hit some bush or rock, the saucer pitched to an abrupt stop, and I took flight. A second later, I did a beautiful face plant in the powder snow.Then I retrieved the saucer, and started trudging back up the hill, wanting to use the new path I had cut again to see if I could go faster. 

All this begs the question: why am I writing about this? I don't know if I really believe that chemo is like riding a flying saucer. I don't think the purity of the snow in Connecticut in 1972 is in some way going to describe what it means to reach nadir. Maybe I'm really losing it. 

Meanwhile, the days go on here. Friends and neighbors drop off food, I visualize myself taking a shower or walking down the block. I spend a lot of time focused on what I should eat, what I can't eat, what I need to force myself to eat. 

And yet I still think about the Pinole house, and how we will ge it done. I still imagine taking the Kenney Cottage to the country and reassembling it as a home in the woods (but out of the fire zone). I think about teaching Irving, Blanche and Stella how to bake and how to glaze windows and how to run romex. 

It's all still out there, my past, my weirdly restricted present, and my future. I'm clinging to all of it.