Before checking into the hospital one very early Monday morning for my first week of biochemotherapy treatments, I harbored the delusion that I’d be sitting in a recliner in the hospital’s infusion center and trying to pass a boring time by chatting with other patients, reading, and listening to music. And wishing that anything other than Oprah and Dr. Phil had been the daytime TV shows of choice for a bunch of women in for pink cancer treatment that day.
Reality proved to be entirely different and quite ugly. By Tuesday afternoon, we were launching my second twenty-four hour infusion round and I was confined to a tiny room in the hospital’s critical care oncology unit, quite incapacitated and unrecognizable even to myself, wondering what on Earth I’d gotten myself into and hoping the nurses would knock me out with another shot of Demerol in the IV line.
Yikes. If tanning beds are truly addictive, I think I know the cure: sampling one round of biochemo. I can’t think of a more fitting song than “Tuesday Afternoon” by the Moody Blues...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPLWBhNW3FM
Tuesday afternoon.
I'm just beginning to see,
This has gone astray.
These drugs are shattering me,
Chasing Black C away.
Code Blues called on me.
White coats are running in here,
They will not let me die.
Those gentle voices I hear
Tell me that I’m still live.
I'm looking at myself, reflection blows my mind.
It's just the thing to make me leave my tan behind.
So keep on living through this crazy band of drugs,
If you could just come with me and see no beauty of
Tuesday afternoon.
Tuesday afternoon.
Tuesday afternoon.
I'm just beginning to see,
This is one bad day.
These drugs are shattering me,
Chasing Black C away.
Chaplain looks at me.
She thinks a priest should be here,
Believes I’m going to die.
Those nurses’ voices I hear
Explain that I’m still all right.
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Another great post, Rich.
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