Original draft: 4/14/17. Just before I took a turn for god-awful...
I've been wrestling with my thoughts lately, what's important and what's not. Moreover, those thoughts are all caste in a kind of shadow from light to dark and back.
It must be the constant daily grind of regular cancer treatments that's getting to me, wearing me down. A head-on fight is not nearly as bad as a long seige, so Sun Tzu would say. Yes, it's not the known frontal assaults and the obvious obstacles that unnerve me and make me dispirited. No, those I can take on, with fervor and vigor sometimes. I may not be willing but I try not to shirk.
It's the battle of attrition that I'm not so good at tackling-- the slow, methodical grinding away, the relentless seeping in of doubt, light blows that over time become almost crushing. So, I ask, What's the more formidable opponent: Godzilla or ants?
And here, I believed that I was a determined foe who could take on just about anything. That must have been youth or hubris thinking in all it's glorified ignorance. Truth is, my greatest opponent has been and still is whatever outlasts me and my level of fortitude. Of course, fortitude is intangible and, therefore, hard to measure.
What I'm up against is a battle of a long duration that I can't afford to lose... All right, that sounds too serious. I mean, despite the scary-sounding diagnosis of stage IIIB lymphoma, my particular prognosis-- based on age, physical condition, and, otherwise, general health --is excellent. There's no reason I shouldn't come out of this with a full recovery and remission.
The situation itself on the surface, then, isn't something to fear or make a person lose hope. So, why is my personal outlook overcast from time to time? Like now?... Just tired, I guess-- tired of the everyday, the having to suspend many of life's worthwhile pursuits, knowing that some things have to wait. It gets frustrating. The problem is, it's impossible to put a positive spin on everything all the time. The reality and/or perception I'm grappling with? It's that the whole indefinite aspect of getting through this experience is arduous and oppressive. It's a fight within a fight, and this one is of mood. It's a wicked fight, however, which might sound benign, but isn't, so it shouldn't be taken lightly.
The unpleasantness of illness takes many forms. The kind a person gets over in a week or two-- like the flu, pneumonia, or a bad cold --takes on a different aspect altogther from one that goes longer-- say, a month or two --and requires some rehabilitation. Then, there's this nasty aberration that takes up an indefinite time period and looks determined to hold on, to apply pressure, and fight like the worst kind of pest imaginable.
