EL DIABLO

It feels impossible to think good thoughts. Every ache, every pain brings fresh doubt and fear. I need water, I need food. I live on the moon. I don't have anyone to help get me anything.

That amalgam removal fucked me up. A little leaked out during extraction, I could literally smell my tooth. By the second day I was in a world of pain, excruciating bone pain, unbearable indescribable pain. For the next few days all I did was detox, waking to sleeping. Drinking "sand", enemas, baths, tons of liquid, teas, crying, stretches, sweats, I did and took everything I had, I tried my hardest. I hurt so badly. It subsided but I'm still weak from it. I just want to feel normal.

The medicine I wait on is taking too long. I don't feel protected. I seem to be getting worse. My chest houses sharp stabbing pains. There's pain running down my left leg from hip to ankle. Shoulder and back pain throbs in and out. I have only been awake for 9 hours but I am already wanting to sleep. Last night I was almost manic with energy. Today, nothing.

My parents don't know anything I take, make, do, they're in the dark. They don't ask questions, show interest, retain any information, show up for appointments unless I freak the fuck out after many months of feeling frustrated and alone. I practically have to scream and shout. They then freak out themselves realizing -- Holy Fucking Shit, my daughter has the kind of cancer that kills, I better go to a scan or something with her because she's going to die! Then it's like they punched a fucking card, are clocked out for however long until I get upset again and scream and shout.

I think they like to live in denial as much as everyone else. I wish I could escape too.

Who can I call on who can relate, everyone keeps dying. I lose someone, I meet through some cancer connection or another, almost every month, sometimes twice in a week. When I get to the point where there is no more reason to fight I want it to be over quickly. None of this hanging on for 3 months in bed. I might speed up the ending myself when I know it's futile.

Imminent doom is the hallmark of the mind-fuck that is living with incurable cancer. You never know what each new pain means. You can be living high for a minute and low low low for weeks. Each time is a little worse, a little longer, and you think to yourself, "This is it". I can barely walk, I was dancing yesterday. I'm not going to bounce back from this. I have had 20 bad days out of 26 this month. For whatever reason, it doesn't matter why. Being in a low state with no relief is the ice than can split the boulder in half. 

I stubbornly acknowledge that nothing stays the same, everything changes. This will change. My poor outlook and fear and pain will subside. In it's place will be hope, humor, and relief. I hate that I know this but can't see or feel it. Experience tells me to hang on, but my ego tells me to give up. I am again standing at the edge of the cliff hearing the chanting below, "Jump, jump, jump!"

Why is cancer such a fucker?

There is a light you can't always see

I have said it all year, this is my year. If this is the last year, it's all good. I got almost everything out of it that I really wanted. There are a couple of things on the list but you can't have it all and that's okay. My road is difficult, I am grateful for anything going my way.

I picture myself falling closer towards death like a freakishly talented leaner visually defying gravity with ease and grace. My body might be attracted like a metal object to the MRI machine in slow motion, but my feet are firmly planted. I reflect constantly on where I am at this moment. It's most important to me to be aware of the current moment even though I know I am made up of billions of former moments and all that has come before is affecting how I feel and see life. I want to be new all of the time. I'm somewhere between impartial observance and writing books in my head. I love to laugh at people, in my mind. Joyfully, jokingly, with mirth and a devilish bent; it gets me through. Laughter is the best medicine.

It's not in my DNA to follow the herd. I don't like to copy people, I don't like people copying me. I'm still in 3nd grade with little sisters. Stop doing what I'm doing, do your own thing. Some people tell me they think I'm weird. I'm not weird, I'm original. We're all potentially original. The problem lies in looking to someone or something, some religion, the current pop culture style, or some way of being that you think is cool, better, smart, sage, most of all popular and acceptable to copy. It's in the words people use, ways they dress, ways they do their hair, places they go. I rarely meet anyone original. Is it the unavoidable intrinsic nature of people needing to be loved, to blame?

When I was younger I looked up to people who could tell a really good story, but I felt tongue tied and shy. I didn't like to be the center of attention, or looked at by a lot of people at once. As a kid I was painfully shy, the kind of shy where I would cry if I had to do something that required talking to strangers or being put on the spot. That's odd since I remember sharing in 1st grade. I looked forward to sharing. I guess it was because I was focused on an object. I don't know. I cried all the way to school everyday I was late because I believed kids would notice and judge me. At the age of 5 why was that a problem already? Being observant as an adult has served me better. Kids have very little power and life is confusing. What can a kid do with a brain like that? 

I was not a carefree child. I used to look at other kids and wonder how they could play so freely. Why was I observing this in early years of grade school, why was a little kid so concerned about shit? I don't know why I was like that; walking around in a kid's body being a worry wart. I worried and worried. I observed social structures within friend circles learning early on that close friends can turn on each other. I lucked out with my best friend because she was mainly loyal, but by 6th grade she switched to another best friend, going back and forth. I was in a grade higher, even though she was older. I skipped a grade so we had separate friends from that, but I felt manipulated. She used to lie often, called them "white lies". It wasn't until many years later that I came to the realization she lied to me too. The common excuses to get out of plans were: I have a migraine/my stomach hurts/I just threw up. She would use those on other people to get out of plans with them, but she also used those on me. 

We are still friends but not longer best friends. She didn't fight for me, but I didn't stay and fight for me either, I just walked away. I don't fight with my friends. Those relationships are fragile, not like family. I have since forgiven her, completely, and love her to pieces, but our relationship will never be the same. I was forced into a corner and needed to adapt really fast. It was a huge learning curve. My pride, always my pride, to mask the fear. I learned very early to hold my head high and not show any weakness.

It's hard for someone who's had everything handed to them to understand what it's like to be forced to fend for themselves. I was promised a place to live when I went out there to visit, no intentions of staying, but the offer was a standing offer. I unintentionally got stuck there when a different friend took me camping in a national forest with a large amount of marijuana in his car and got us both arrested. He could have told the truth, but instead he let me take the fall with him. I had done nothing wrong, I didn't have any previous knowledge of the trash bag of weed under the mattress in the back of the truck. That little mishap got me stuck in Boston without warm clothes, money and a place to live because the judge ordered me to not return home until it was over. I faced a felony. My friend's spoiled roommate didn't want to "live with a stranger" even though there was an empty bedroom, unused. The empty bedroom belonged to another rich girl whose daddy was paying her to party and go to school in Italy. She wanted more than I could have afforded to pay for a room at that time and was inflexible on the rent. She would rather it sit empty than let me live in it for reduced rent. My friend didn't stick up for me, her best friend of 15 years. I'm not bitter anymore but I felt that ghost-knife in my back for many years, thus we didn't talk for a long time after that.

I look at experiences and know they shaped who I am today. I can handle a lot before I cave in. And if I do, I always get right back up and start over like, what, I was just resting on the floor for a minute. I was kicked out of the house by my mother when I was 15, as a "scare tactic" but I left. I believed it was real. You tell me to leave, I'll leave. I never understood getting hysterical, that is wind I might need for sailing later. I don't get people who go nuts. If I get bad news, my first inclination is to start planning an exit. A treatment. A plan. 

I'm going to bed it's been a big day. I had more mercury fillings removed, the biggest ones. I had the other side done 2 weeks ago. I hope I get good kickbacks from this. Maybe the mercury has been wreaking havoc on my meridians and overall immune system, and now I will be stronger for the removal. I only have a crown to do, but it's a one-day affair, unlike most conventional crowns. Don't put metal in your mouth, and don't look back in anger. Peas and dove