Monday was a down day

I felt miserable. It was a combination of cold and/or allergies and the cancer. The day was cold and miserable, the kind of day that takes away your morale as well as your body heat. I had a doctor's appointment to secure some more insulin. I got up to get ready at 10:30. I had slept late because I felt so lousy to begin with. I weighed myself and I had lost 2 more precious pounds. I got to the doctor's office and visited with him. He prescribed more 70/30 long and short term insulin. Novolin this time. I went to get the prescription filled and the time dragged like waiting for hell to open up and swallow me. It took a full hour, maybe a little more to get the single prescription filled. Before me was a line of people, all of them getting cold and allergy prescriptions filled. You get to know the look of codeine cough medicine being dispensed and listen to the conversations of people discussing their symptoms and you find out how pervasive the mung is among the population.

I had the mung but that was the least of my worries. I felt miserable and just wanted to get home and back to bed. Losing the weight was a major blow. The doctor said it was because of the insulin imbalance. If we can get the blood sugars down the weight would stabilize. I had a screaming headache and a sense of deep detachment from the people around me. I was tired and beat and all I wanted was to get out and come home.

I thought a lot of very dark thoughts during the time I waited. They were all about death and what was very likely waiting for me in the next few months. My mind played deadly serious games with me, like wondering what it was that I was going to miss out when I passed. How much of the 'future' was I going to miss, and that I had no need for new clothes or more tools or much of anything else as my condition was not going to allow me to utilize any of them. I speculated on how long I had left. The weight was the primary indicator.

Pancreatic cancer starves the body. Body weight becomes a primary resource. The more weight you lose the less time you have left. I have now lost 11 or so pounds in about three weeks. The chemo has got to kick in soon and counter act the effects of the cancer. I am hoping the Novolin will stabilize the insulin/sugar equation. I wondered if I would be able to eat enough to put weight on and keep it.

This is no simple question. My body does not benefit fully from the food I eat. I would guess I get about 40 to 60 percent of the nutrition out of every meal I consume. The rest simply passes through. Right now I could eat for two and get the benefit for one, but I will spend half my day in the bathroom as a result. I have been doing that for better than a year now and it wears a guy down. I had some good days during late summer, but they are behind me now. I can only count on the chemo and the insulin to help me through these days. And eating everything that comes my way.

I am awake early this morning because I had to get up to go to the bathroom. Getting rid of excess sugars in my blood the old fashioned way. And the melancholy has not left me. I peruse the Internet and I read what purports to pass for news. I look at what is happening in the world and I am not encouraged. We have computers and instantaneous messaging and global reach for data and information, yet stupidity and ignorance are the only things gaining in popularity. Near as I can tell only ignorance can exist in a vacuum and it seems to prosper these days. People seem to read more and more only to confirm their biased points of view. On the plus side I will likely not see the outcome of the current political effort. For that I am somewhat soothed. I can say without fear of contradiction that as a whole our politicians have gotten dumber by the day over the last several years, and their constituents even worse. The more important the politician the more absurd his perspective is. I am waiting for the pictures of the witch, the duck and the scales to hit the front page of the major newspapers across the land. You can tell I am in a fit right now. I feel alone, isolated and completely abandoned by the world. My poor health makes me very self centered and my deteriorating condition separates me even further.

Let's give the Novolin a few days, and another infusion a chance to work. Maybe this weight loss will stop and maybe, just maybe I can make up some lost ground. I'm going back to bed. I will dream of scrumptious meals and exotic treats to get my hunger up. I have to eat like there is no tomorrow, for surely if I don't there won't be.