limbo before scan.

i am waiting at the moment.  i have a scan on monday which, to a major degree, decides aspects of my fate.  it will tell my doctors if the chemotherapy regime i’ve been on has ‘arrested growth’ or not.  hopefully it has, as i suspect due to the fact i can no longer feel two of the tumours that were in my abdomen, sticking out below my ribcage, and that my ribcage has shrunk.  but the hard evidence is in that CT scan.  and i am terrified.  i am trying to use advice a wise woman gave me on a facebook thread: stay in each day. it is … days until my scan. i will worry about it on that day.  it is … days until the result. i will worry about that when i get it from my oncologist.  but it’s hard.  i feel very vulnerable at the moment – my body is being assaulted by chemicals, and i have a really rotten hanging around cold.  it is viral, so it’s ok, but it’s exhausting and upsetting and i am sick of it.  it’s making me more emotional than i would be, and even my epic power-playlist doesn’t always cheer me up.

night time is the worst.  the gap between taking my seroquel and sleep is growing as my body gets used to the seroquel dose i am on. i’m reluctant to adjust it without a more significant mood change, just for sleep – i should try other techniques. but it’s the lying there, in the dark, with no white noise, that scares me.  i love the white noise. i spend a lot of time online, because of the white noise. the constant stream of twitter and facebook make me feel safer than i can say. i can see people – through the other side of a keyboard – that i would not normally see.  i feel connected. i can talk to them, and i feel so much less alone. this is isolating.  i tend to talk the most on twitter at night, late, when almost everyone is asleep. it’s talking in an empty room, but it feels safe, and almost always, at least someone is there to witness whatever it is that i am terrified or saddened by.

i am struggling with the silence in general. not working means long, long days alone, by myself, staring at the screen of my computer. i often don’t even drag myself off to do something productive and enjoyable like craft – i just stare, and try and forget, and try and not have my regular freak outs.  i often fail at not having the regular freak outs. i had an epic one today over BREAKING MY WEAVING. alex fixed it in ten minutes.

after i get the scan results i’ll be better. it’s always the waiting that drives me insane.

in good news, one of the people – from work- who has been one of my Rocks through all this, got me a book on sock knitting that, unbeknownst to her, i’d actually been wanting to buy for years.  so i am filled with sock happiness, and now have no reason NOT to knit alex the purple socks i got the yarn for before xmas….