Never felt so out of control… There are times when I am face down in the grass. I’m not quite hairless… yet. I lay in my own wool and it pokes me. Lightening strikes and I writhe helpless in its power. Its target… muscles and joints. My earth is shattered. I thought I knew what was happening. I come crashing, no defense.

Owww!!!! I cry out and I am ignored. It’s taking me to the edge. I know it. They say I will come back. It doesn’t feel like it. Food, any kind of sustenance tastes like metal. I call Cappucini but his nurse doesn’t respond. Owwww! I cry into the phone and I get no response. They are used to hearing people cry. They’re thinking… Do you want to survive? I’m thinking… but is it suppose to hurt like this?

The colors are brilliant right now… the greens are mind-boggling. The wisteria makes me crazy with its heady fragrance…

Hold me, I say with tears in my eyes… don’t let go or I’ll fall, I’m falling anyway. Blow my hair away in clouds. Put it in and make me feel warm, alive. Don’t be afraid, I’m not contagious. I smell of gunboats… petroleum and cast iron, but I’m still a woman. How long will you stay? Until you feel only bones? I’ll come back… I promise. My hair… my muscles… my eyes, without tears.

I am happy to be alive… I might die. I can do that. It’s hard to come here and easy to leave. Stay as long as you can. Leave when you have to. I’ll walk slow and determined.

I’m planting a garden. I want to go to a wedding in Ojai in July. I want to see how much he loves me. I want to see Ancel and Enora grow. I want to love them and be loved by them.

I love my scar that runs from my pussy to my heart. It curves around my belly button, a map from here to there. What do you think that says about me?

I am better than I have been in two weeks but they shoot me up again on Thursday and then I go down again. Down again. Five more times…. I will go down again. Now I am frightened. I know what’s coming… It waits for me in a shining bag that hangs above my head. I lie in a nice anatomically designed chair. They try to find a vein and it hurts… everything hurts. Then I lay there trying not to think about the poison that drips into my vein for 6 hours. I taste it on my tongue. I am sedated so I don’t scream, “What the FUCK!”, and scare the other patients.

I am at the shamans. He knows what he is doing. I lay at his feet while he streams a potion of tree bark into my open wound. I’m O.K. now… in good hands now… kill a rooster, dust me with ashes, blow smoke in my face, sing your songs. Turn the fucking T.V. off. Don’t you know what is happening to us? “Are you O.K. Mrs. Peterson?” “Fuck no. I’m not O.K.” I shout inside but smile with blind eyes so as not to see the people with hair, full face, and quick gait. “Sure, I can drive”, I’ll say as I stumble out of the office. “I can fly. Can’t you?” I certainly hope that somebody can.

This is miserable. I am miserable. But in my misery I see god in everything. My life, though it hurts and is scary, is good. I am still here. I have a friend lying in a hospital dying. Children hurt everywhere for millions of reasons. My suffering is small. I am fine. I am following the “slender threads”.

Post Script: 2016

I wrote this piece sometime in 2005 when I was undergoing intense chemo therapy for a possible death sentence type cancer. Without chemo, I had a 1% chance of surviving the rare and aggressive disease. It has been, almost to the day, 11 years since beginning an equally aggressive treatment. Maybe I am a couple of weeks early.

Six weeks after traumatic, invasive surgery, I spent one eight hour day, every week for eight months sitting in a chair with two types of chemicals dripping, first into the veins in my arms, and eventually into a sorely placed port in my chest. Infusion chemo took my hair away after the first treatment. It took away my strength. It took away clear thinking, my sense of well-being, my strong immune system. It took away many things, but it gave me more time on planet earth… to see the garden grow.

As I read this essay this evening, I decided to share it. Who knows, it just might ring a bell. It might be timely. It might be interesting.