Post Diagnosis Day Five

As you would expect the world has gotten much smaller since I found out. Except for a job interview which I was nowhere near the right frame of mind for, I've been sticking close to home. Lots of reading, watching TV, blogging about little things. Pallative care, which is of course as much for the nurse as the patient, is very wearying with its success measured in tiny pieces. She drank some water, ate some food. The worst times are when she walks around restlessly, very deliberately, like an overcompensating drunk. Every trip out of the house involves a nervewracking return-will she still be there? Will she be gone? Which should I hope for? It seems like one of those times in life where if you pay close attention you might learn something, probably about yourself. For example, I would have not thought myself capable of poking anything with a needle and administering fluids but 'there is no other choice' is a powerful motivator. Every responsible pet owner goes into it knowing there may come a day when you have to make that call. If it comes to that, I'm ready. It's the very least I can do.

As always in times of crisis I turn to poetry and music especially old favorites. Like this from Mary Oliver's "In Blackthorn Woods":

"Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

againest your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go."