September | 2021 | That Woman's Weblog

I have never felt so out of my depth. All my life I have been decisive , could see my way to a solution or know who to reach out to in order to find a solution. Yet here I was in a strange city , scared to death , totally alone . having to bury my fears, worried I would say or do something that would hurt my son or take away his thread of hope. I could not let him see my doubts , my worries.

I would take my phone out to the pool area and call Nikki , my support , she would get me back on track but I really could never even be totally truthful with her . A young mother with a little baby , she too ,scared of the future without Chris.

Watching was the hardest part of those weeks in Houston, feeling so damned inadequate. I had promised him the day he was born that I would never let any harm come to him and I would always protect him and here I was totally useless and not being able to keep that promise .

You do the deals with an unknown powerful being,

take me , let him be cured

and knowing somehow you are wasting your time, but you feel you have to try anything to save him. You spend hours on the internet researching looking for a glimmer of hope, knowing this trial is the last chance. If I had been told,

in order to save him they would need every drop of my blood

I would have gladly died for him. There was never any choice given to me.

It is a rollercoaster ride, lost in a maze of emotions abysmally alone. Despair finds you , weakens you takes you to regions of a self made hell

Depths of Despair – artwork Chris Ritchey

The keeping up a positive face was probably the most draining for him as well as me. Chris was still filling out the report forms , everything noted as manageble. He never mentioned in the notes that every night he couldn’t sleep for the pain and would run the hottest of baths , sometimes 8 or 9 almost burning his skin to get some relief. He would surround himself with hot water bottles filled with boiling water. I pretended not to notice but it was hard when the electric kettle would disappear into his bedroom and the the wet towels would be hung of the shower rail.

I would close the bathroom door and check the bottles of pain pills they were going down at an alarming rate. It was so hard and finally I understood Chris’ artwork to describe the word HARD , it did truly feel to me that I was rushing headlong into an impenetrable hell , impossible to pass through. I would shake these premonitions as just down to being emotionally exhausted.

Artwork Chris Ritchey— HARD

I so wanted to hold and cuddle my son as I did when he was little. But he was a grown man and although I would get the occasional pat on the head as he would walk by I knew the last thing he needed was for me to show weakness.

Crying time was when he would go to the shooting range or to Cabelas . I knew I would have a couple of hours to myself . I would, on occasion, take one of his shirts and bury my face in the folds just to be near him and let the tears flow, somehow in that act to release the pain. I washed a lot of shirts doing that.

We did try normalcy , some sightseeing but always I was watching to see how he was dealing with the energy being used . I waited – hoping the news would be good at the end of the trial and what he was putting himself through would all be worth it.

Waiting , it seemed that is all I had been doing for 13 months. Waiting in doctors and hospital waiting rooms. The chairs in those rooms , no matter the hospital or city or state, were clones of one another.

People watching , wondering what the story was of the man waiting behind the frosted glass , he also waiting for good news or bad, feeling that connection with someone who briefly passed through in a moment, never acknowledging each other not speaking – but connected.

Waiting whilst announcements were made and the sound of rubbers soles squeaking on tiled floors, the wheels of hospital carts as they rolled down hallways announcing more meds. Waiting , not daring to breathe as results from tests were coming and all the time wanting to run away far away but knowing there was no running from this obscene disease …..

if cancer had a face

to be continued

September 3, 2021 at 12:45 pm 2 comments

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