Long and dark day today

This morning I went to the Social Security Administration to file for disability on account of the pancreatic cancer. I filed electronically yesterday. They have a special consideration feature in the software that detects mention of or reference too any one of 88 diseases that are on a specified list and those identified applications get fast tracked for evaluation. Pancreatic cancer is on that list. I went today to hand in paperwork verifying my medical history and to show my smiling face. (Amazing that you can file electronically but have to hand in additional paperwork rather than send a .pdf file.)I haven't paid in to SS for several years on account of having no work so I may get disqualified there. Let's just see if they allow me some slack.

Later in the day I went to get the results of my CT scan read to me. It was bad. They used medical terminology to say that several lymph glands near the site of the previous cancer appear to be turning cancerous. It doesn't get much worse than that. I start chemotherapy Friday, and Monday is my first infusion. It is the old schedule only this time they will test my blood after each 3 week cycle rather than 9 weeks to decide if they are going to continue. If it continues for two or more of those cycles I will go bald again. Not that it matters, most of the time I will be too tired to do anything like go out or to the store to be seen in public. And the green chemo skin is sort of off putting to some women and most children anyway. This could go on for several months again.

Having gone through three chemo cycles before and knowing the gravity of pancreatic cancer I am scared. The sort of scared you get when you know you are going into battle and there is a chance you ain't gonna make it out alive. That's pretty much how it this time. When the pancreatic cancer comes back, it comes roaring back. This is round two and the cancer is angry at me.

I expect soon the specter of death will come to my door to continue our nightly poker games and exchanges of witty comments like before. I never missed him so much that I wanted him to come back. A future that looked like it might be five years or more suddenly became not so certain.