So how can you tell me you’re lonely?

I’m getting some perspective again. Yesterday I had a Pulmonary Function Test (PFT), a bone marrow biopsy, and a dexascan to check for osteoporosis (evidently a common side effect of liver failure).

The PFT was done in the cardio unit of the hospital. There were people there doing cardio-rehab while I waited. Old men with their shirts off, wired to a EKG monitor, bravely doing their best on treadmills and stationary bikes. A younger guy, my age, still healing from bypass surgery, who was gamely doing his best with an arm work-out because he was still unsteady on his legs.

The marrow biopsy was done in the cancer unit, since that’s what these biopsies are usually testing for. I still have my hair. I walked in under my own power. I don’t have to wear a mask to go outside, for fear of catching something from a passer-by.

The dexascan was done in the radiology unit. Old women in walkers, bent nearly double, inched their way from point A to point B. A guy in his twenties, braces on both legs, strolled out the door smiling, in command of his aids as if he’d been wearing them all his life.

How dare I complain about anything.

I had been dreading the bone marrow biopsy, so in many ways that test was the most harrowing. Dr. A was excellent at performing blocks though – everything down to the bone was absolutely painless. They can’t block the pain from inside the bone as they remove samples of marrow, though, and I’m ashamed to say I whimpered through much of that. The nurse who helped position me for the sampling gave me her hand to squeeze, and that single piece of human contact made all the difference. I apologized afterwards, and told her I hoped I hadn’t bent her ring out of shape. She laughed and said she’d had far worse patients.

Dr. A spent some time with me afterwards, asking how I was doing. She said she could certainly understand if I were feeling angry or resentful at this point; many of the test results promised me simply haven’t been reported yet, and she was unable to track them down. I told her I was really doing OK, that there was no point in complaining about things. You take what you’re handed, and then you make the most of it. It wasn’t just words. I’m in a frame of mind where I truly believe that at the moment.

Kitten went to the vet for her boosters this morning. She’s feeling the effects now. Nothing like a couple of vaccinations to slow a hyperkinetic kitten down. O’beast and Cattitude are safe from her attentions till at least tomorrow. She’s lying in the window-sill hammock at my left shoulder curled up, with her paw over her head. Traffic outside in the parking lot is failing to catch little Nosey Nellie’s interest. She didn’t even want some of the bonus kibble I offered her. Poor thing. She still weighs only about eight and a half pounds. It looks like she’s going to turn out to be a small and feisty cat. Thank heavens. The other two cats have a chance at survival if she doesn’t overtake them in the mass department.

Got an email from a friend yesterday. A good friend, one I haven’t stayed closely enough in touch with. He wrote:

You have been – as ever – in my thoughts.

My last note left me dissatisfied. I desperately wish

to to be available to my friends. I feel inadequate

and inept.

We used to challenge each other. We used to face each

other into Self. We would do this with only the best

of intentions.

So…

You don’t need to give me an answer, but you should at

least answer these to yourself. Our common list of

questions:

Are you happy? If not, what are you unhappy about?

What would make you happy?

I was also once told not to run away from things, but

to have something worthwhile to run toward. What are

you running from?

And finally, one that I think is not asked often

enough: What do you want?

That list of questions is what we’d pose to each other each time we found ourselves backed to the wall. I’m hoping he doesn’t mind me answering them here. (I promise to write an email back by the weekend with some more personal commentary, B.)

First – am I happy? Sometimes. I hate being on disability. I hate not knowing what’s caused this illness. I despise the fact that I run out of breath doing a flight of stairs. I want to know how much time I’ve got. I want everything back to normal. I’m frustrated because I can’t have that. So I put it aside, and try not to dwell on it. What would make me happy? Finding some direction in my life again. I’m not entirely sure how to go about that. If I survive this, I won’t be able to return to my old job. I don’t know what else I’m good for. The future is a scary direction for me to look at the moment.

I don’t think I’m running from anything at the moment, though. I’ve face my fears, and seen my way through to the other side of most of them. At this moment, I’m neither running from nor toward anything. I’m in a state of inertia. I’m waiting for something to give me a push to get me going again. Waiting to exhale, if you will.

What do I want? I want my life back, as it was. I want to take my liver for granted again. I want a strawberry daquari. I want to eat because I’m hungry, not because I know if I don’t I’ll only get sicker. Again, I want what I can’t have.

So I return to the words of Ralph McTell. I don’t have too walk to far to find out how good I have it. I need to learn to fixate on that, on the valuables I still possess and not on what is lost. I have no room to say that “for me, the sun don’t shine” and I know it. So, for the time being, I spend my days like a metaphysical cat, looking for metaphysical sunsplash on the floor that I can do some metaphysical basking in. The rest will follow from there.