April 13

I am puzzled about my condition to say the least. Since I was diagnosed there has been a flurry of medical procedures and tests and then more procedures and now chemotherapy. I have no basis to blame any one of them for any part of my current conditions. I am weak and pale, I am now eating better but with some questions remaining about what I should eat if I was on a proper diet. I have bouts of diabetes which I am assured are the result of my pancreas being damaged. I have two purportedly reliable home meters for reporting and recording my blood sugar levels. The doctor informs me that a reading between 200 and 300 is what I should strive for. I have regularly pegged them to the point that they report on 'HI" which is their reference point for blood sugar levels over 600. The point at which I should have gone into diabetic coma and possibly have died. I apparently have not gone into shock nor have I died. I have tried several things to lower my blood sugars, among them eating dinners of some unknown origin that my loving wife has prepared. One consisting of boiled hamburger, some cottage cheese, some broth of gruel and some sort of elongated green thing I thought it better to not ask the origin of. It tasted just as my description implied. I did not finish it and it waits for me in the refrigerator. As do other dinner of similar origins.I shall have to rise early tomorrow and dispose of them before any more is said of them.

My loving wife has also taken me in for acupuncture to comfort me. It is said to lessen the effects of the chemotherapy. That would be a godsend of enormous proportions as it might separate out the effects of having a probably fatal disease from the effects of the medical treatments proposed to prolong my life. Should one symptom diminish I might be able to identify which pain or nauseous condition could be properly attributes to which source. That would eliminate some guessing on my part. But there is a long list of these symptoms and pains, and some symptoms are periodic so again it might might be more speculation than resolution to assign blame to any single cause. I can say that without doubt almost every symptom of the disease and every treatment for it causes some sort of nausea, which I now categorize as temporary or periodic, according to how long it might last. I am assured through personal experience that every medicine made to relieve any one symptom of the disease is also assured to cause nausea.

My nights are much like my days recently. I sleep poorly in either environment. Sometimes not at all, and sometimes under the most cruel of situation where every dream I have turns into a cruel spectacle of everything that can possibly go wrong does so. That usually comes about in the darkest hour of the night when one's insecurities run most rampant. One would think the obvious solution would be to sleep less during the day to be more tired at night. If that were only the way. I get so tired during the day that any effort seems beyond me. I need to bring myself to see just how much strength and energy remains so that I have some idea of what I am capable of. Tomorrow would be a good day for that as today has nearly run its course and tomorrow has an open schedule.

To summarize, I am tired, hungry, nauseous, in pain and generally confused as to what is going to happen to me. I ponder death and I consider living on in this horrible mess of a reality. That is as close to philosophy as I can get because I have no control over which is my ultimate end. Some days are better than others, Thursdays and Friday are very bad because my intravenous chemo is Thursday morning. I have had one such day so far and it took until today or so to recover. Nearly five days to recover from what they did to me in one morning. Medical science needs to improve their record I'd say. I take oral chemo every day and night which also contributes to the misery. My schedule is 2 weeks of oral chem, with intravenous on Thursdays, a week off, then another cycle until I have done 3 full cycles. At that point they take another picture and look to see what their medicine has done. June 4 is the day I get my next MRI. A few days later I learn my fate.