Broken Doll

Sigh.  I am less pissed off than I make out to be, but I am mildly exasperated.

Really, all I want is for all the god damned pathological liars to stay the hell out of my life.

I do not want to run into her at Faire.  I do not want to know she is at Faire.  I do not want her anywhere within the sphere of my life at all.  It was bad enough she continued to hang out at group events years beyond reaching the supposed cutoff age.  I would prefer to not even be aware that she still exists.

I just want to go out and fecking celebrate finally being done with all this cancer shit without having her existence nagging at the back of my mind that yes, Virginia, truly evil people, while rare, do in fact exist.

Fuck fuck goddammit.

My feelings have been complicated.

On the one hand, my last chemo session ever is in a week and I am elated. I am so anxious to put all of this behind me.

On the other, I have been miserable this week. Recovery from chemo, even to get to a minimal, I-can-get-out-of-bed level, takes so damn long now. It was today, a week, before the burning in my limbs quieted enough to not be annoyingly distracting. Monday morning I woke up at 5am bloated and in so much pain that I thought my gut was going to explode. Three hours and a disgusting cocktail of magnesium salts later, my bowels go to the opposite extreme and I spent most of the morning running back to the toilet.

I haven’t been able to sleep. Night sweats, hot flashes, thanks to chemo making me menopausal two months ago. More frequent now and it takes hours to get to sleep, and every night this week I’ve woken up multiple times because I’m too damn hot and sweating — and this is with a prescription sleeping pill and air conditioning. So I am constantly tired even aside from being run-down from chemo. I lie down at night exhausted and between the acid-ache in my body and the sweats I just can’t get to sleep. I don’t think it’s been earlier than 2am any night this week. Then waking at 4am, and again at 5, and again at 6.

And I wonder about the aftermath. What will it take to get my body back, the whole one, that could run 4 or 5 miles a day, drink occasionally, dance, push myself mentally and physically without completely falling apart. This body is broken and how long are the repairs going to take? The drugs made me gain weight so I’ve got 20 pounds or more to lose (I’ve been afraid to look at the scale). When will the hot flashes stop? When will the aching go away for good? When do I get my hair back? How do I recreate myself to be more like what I used to be? Can I do that?

What happens next?  Where do I go from here?

I’m tired and I want to sleep and I am wide, wide awake.

So. Turns out I was right and that blurring the line between personal friend and work colleague is a fantastically stupid idea.

Sarah sold me out. Sarah who drunkenly claimed to love me on any number of occassions. Sarah whom I used to respect as a colleague and used to consider a friend.

Just because I don’t look sick doesn’t mean that I am not. I mean, jesus. Would you have preferred that I bitch and moan and whine constantly about how bad I feel? Did you want me to curl up on the floor and whimper every time I got the shakes, or my chest hurt, or I couldn’t catch my breath even though I was just sitting down? Did you want me to chuck the wig in a box and come to work looking like a decaying skull with my thin, scraggly hair falling out all over the place? Do you really think that would have been better? Or would I have made you fucking uncomfortable?

Show a little fucking gratitude that you only had to watch this happen to someone else.

Sarah claimed to be my friend, but hasn’t attempted to contact me in any way since July 9 to explain herself or even to tell me to fuck off and die. If she’d called or emailed to apologize and say that he made the decision against her wishes that would be one thing.

Which only serves to emphasize the point that no one gets this. At all. Because they can’t, even if they want to (and even less so if you can’t be arsed to think beyond yourself). No one has any idea what this is like. I could explain til I’m blue in the face — and did, frankly, on the updates I sent out — and Sarah watched it happen and she still sold me out anyway.

There is nothing more despicable than a liar. Deceit and greed are the foundation of every other sin.

I can’t make anyone understand this. I am, ultimately, completely alone.