Y’all. Here Comes the Novel.
People try to ask what keeps me busy these days. There’s nothing I can really offer them, as I can’t very well *do* anything or start anything substantial career-wise without the very real risk of someone, somewhere, having an emergency...
...the water heater/kitchen decides to flood...
...I decide it's time for a tooth infection/root canal/car wreck...
...the *a different crown* decides to excavate itself the following week...
...the Dog Almost Dies...
....My Mom...
...she’s...
Got an Entire List:
*Incapacitating Vertigo
*Bi-Monthly UTIs
….plus her whole host of regular, trying-to-stay-alive-sort-of-okay-ish-ly appointments…
To her us both out the door on time and drive to Fort Worth and then wait for labs, wait for the oncologist (& pretend we have any idea wtf he’s talking about), wait for the infusion process to be complete…then I have to make sure that she eats something substantial (on what days that I can) because for the love of all that is holy she’s still got gd orthoexia (fuck this planet and its fixation on skinny body types & obsolete data), and then the drive back…it’s all just a total beating on Fridays, from 10 am - 4 pm (depending), every three weeks.
You can reschedule, yes, sort of.
But this time, we can’t: Because I took up more classes to sub at TWU these next few weeks so that I could help recover some of the cost of the Bear’s ER/overnight visit, the following Friday is the next available day that I have a large enough window for Cancer Day.
We don’t want to risk pushing her infusion back a full week, because we’re only halfway through the full course of post-op cancer treatment. She already had to stop the home chemotherapy-of which, they had her at half the usual dose-on account of becoming so weak. Now, she’s *most definitely* “medically frail,” for which the stats on survival rates are not all that hot. It’s only a matter of time before she has a fall: The severe weakness (for example, to get out of the car, she must ‘scoot’ her hips forward by whatever means she can, until she can get her feet to touch the ground and/or reach for the door handle & seat to push/pull herself to stand), the poor proprioception (don’t get me started on the cruel joke that home-based PT was and her *severe* pronated ankles), and then finally the severe vertigo spells that come from nothing, are cured by nothing, and…well, it’s just like my eyeballs. There’s absolutely nothing going on that would cause it, but yet it’s incapacitating. So, that’s cool. I digress.
She still gets the tri-weekly infusions, which is the last line of defense remaining that she can withstand for the remaining year of the standard 2-year treatment outline.
Okay well, can’t we just reschedule it?
Well, theoretically.
Even if I had the opportunity to get down to Fort Worth with her THIS Friday (my only available day with enough time for the entire experience), they won’t let you schedule any earlier than your previously assigned spot because the insurance company won’t pay for it.
I can’t work a real job because my unpaid job is driving myself & my mother all over greater DFW to all of our various medical appointments, casually trying to shake her down for information about how she’s *really* doing, whilst trying to keep it all together as I manually operate my eyeballs. When I’m not busy doing that, I’m cramming my schedule full of chaotic gig work, then cleaning both her house and mine, and finally running as much of the errands and executive planning as I can muster.
Today, she had the vertigo, so she rescheduled her dentist appointment (to which I’d be chauffeuring her) for Monday, August 8th, at freaking 8:30 am in the morning. Great. So, because I was too tired after the last Cancer-Day to remember to put her next appointments in the calendar (It’s super thoughtful of them to provide the chemo-fogged patient all the details about their upcoming appointments right as they leave infusion-I mean, why on earth would you want to give it to the actual caregivers?), I have only just discovered as of today that I am essentially doing “Drive Mum Around DFW” duties until about 4 pm on Friday, August 5th, & then resuming them again at 8 am in the morning on Monday, August 8th. There’s just no way I can manage.
Even if I could reschedule her dental appointment, I still picked up an extra lunch shift that day because well damn, I thought we’d drive all day on Thursday to get there, then have all day Friday and Saturday in New Orleans with y’all, and finally still have time to drive back on Sunday before resuming the grind back on Monday. But with Cancer Day eating up all of Friday, that would leave us driving there on Saturday, then turning right around and driving right back on Sunday. I love you both, so much. I am so sorry to have to disappointment you, but also to ruin things planned and making planning things generally so much more difficult for everyone. I can’t stand being that person that always has the long-winded “I can’t” excuse…however, here I am, sadly finding myself being that exact person. I don’t want to let you guys down.
--Bethany Celeste
...the water heater/kitchen decides to flood...
...I decide it's time for a tooth infection/root canal/car wreck...
...the *a different crown* decides to excavate itself the following week...
...the Dog Almost Dies...
....My Mom...
...she’s...
Got an Entire List:
*Incapacitating Vertigo
*Bi-Monthly UTIs
….plus her whole host of regular, trying-to-stay-alive-sort-of-okay-ish-ly appointments…
To her us both out the door on time and drive to Fort Worth and then wait for labs, wait for the oncologist (& pretend we have any idea wtf he’s talking about), wait for the infusion process to be complete…then I have to make sure that she eats something substantial (on what days that I can) because for the love of all that is holy she’s still got gd orthoexia (fuck this planet and its fixation on skinny body types & obsolete data), and then the drive back…it’s all just a total beating on Fridays, from 10 am - 4 pm (depending), every three weeks.
You can reschedule, yes, sort of.
But this time, we can’t: Because I took up more classes to sub at TWU these next few weeks so that I could help recover some of the cost of the Bear’s ER/overnight visit, the following Friday is the next available day that I have a large enough window for Cancer Day.
We don’t want to risk pushing her infusion back a full week, because we’re only halfway through the full course of post-op cancer treatment. She already had to stop the home chemotherapy-of which, they had her at half the usual dose-on account of becoming so weak. Now, she’s *most definitely* “medically frail,” for which the stats on survival rates are not all that hot. It’s only a matter of time before she has a fall: The severe weakness (for example, to get out of the car, she must ‘scoot’ her hips forward by whatever means she can, until she can get her feet to touch the ground and/or reach for the door handle & seat to push/pull herself to stand), the poor proprioception (don’t get me started on the cruel joke that home-based PT was and her *severe* pronated ankles), and then finally the severe vertigo spells that come from nothing, are cured by nothing, and…well, it’s just like my eyeballs. There’s absolutely nothing going on that would cause it, but yet it’s incapacitating. So, that’s cool. I digress.
She still gets the tri-weekly infusions, which is the last line of defense remaining that she can withstand for the remaining year of the standard 2-year treatment outline.
Okay well, can’t we just reschedule it?
Well, theoretically.
Even if I had the opportunity to get down to Fort Worth with her THIS Friday (my only available day with enough time for the entire experience), they won’t let you schedule any earlier than your previously assigned spot because the insurance company won’t pay for it.
I can’t work a real job because my unpaid job is driving myself & my mother all over greater DFW to all of our various medical appointments, casually trying to shake her down for information about how she’s *really* doing, whilst trying to keep it all together as I manually operate my eyeballs. When I’m not busy doing that, I’m cramming my schedule full of chaotic gig work, then cleaning both her house and mine, and finally running as much of the errands and executive planning as I can muster.
Today, she had the vertigo, so she rescheduled her dentist appointment (to which I’d be chauffeuring her) for Monday, August 8th, at freaking 8:30 am in the morning. Great. So, because I was too tired after the last Cancer-Day to remember to put her next appointments in the calendar (It’s super thoughtful of them to provide the chemo-fogged patient all the details about their upcoming appointments right as they leave infusion-I mean, why on earth would you want to give it to the actual caregivers?), I have only just discovered as of today that I am essentially doing “Drive Mum Around DFW” duties until about 4 pm on Friday, August 5th, & then resuming them again at 8 am in the morning on Monday, August 8th. There’s just no way I can manage.
Even if I could reschedule her dental appointment, I still picked up an extra lunch shift that day because well damn, I thought we’d drive all day on Thursday to get there, then have all day Friday and Saturday in New Orleans with y’all, and finally still have time to drive back on Sunday before resuming the grind back on Monday. But with Cancer Day eating up all of Friday, that would leave us driving there on Saturday, then turning right around and driving right back on Sunday. I love you both, so much. I am so sorry to have to disappointment you, but also to ruin things planned and making planning things generally so much more difficult for everyone. I can’t stand being that person that always has the long-winded “I can’t” excuse…however, here I am, sadly finding myself being that exact person. I don’t want to let you guys down.
--Bethany Celeste