Twas the night before Chemo...

Chemo eve is upon me. I usually start to get really nervous the night before and anxious. Honestly I am just really sick and tired of going in for this. I know it is saving my life but god dam. I just am at the end of my rope. I am gathering all the strength I have left for the next few months to get through the last few chemo treatments. I can't lie it is very hard. Yes I am lucky that I have minimal side effects. I keep telling myself this. Still the side effects I do have are just getting on my nerves. The shortness of breath and the exhaustion is just wearing me out.

I can honestly feel this just kicking my ass even more the closer I get to the end. Now things just annoy me. The back pain is the worst. All the pain I had before I started working out is sneaking back in and bad. My eyes are a mess. Since they put me on blood pressure meds I can't see shit. Everything is blurry so I have to use these asshole dollar store readers. It's just a bunch of bullshit things that are just driving me crazy. I guess today being the day before I go in for chemo I get cranky. I really just do not want to feel like I do for those first nine days. 

Maybe it's just my anxiety shining through tonight but I really am not felling happy about all this anymore. I just need to keep talking myself into the fact that I will be ok once this is all over. The scary thing is going through all this and waiting for results at the end. I know I will kill this shit but I don't care what anyone says it's still a scary feeling. I am a few months away from that yet. And theN two years away from knowing it will never come back. In the end of the year I will have to look back at the last six, seven months as a bad dream. 

It started just like a bad dream In May and since then I have been living this hell that is just horrible. I have told many people going through this before to hang in there and fight. There is a bunch of things you say to someone going through this. Going through it is an eye opener. I have never known the hell that you go through. At this point I am trying to just go in head first. No fear and just fuck this shit up. four more treatments I need to make it though. Six weeks. That's it. As hard as this is the next six week will define me. the next six weeks I will see what I have left in me to crawl through the finish line and start to live my life again. I think about my kids and that is all I need to keep moving forward. 

Today has been quiet. I feel ok but I can feel anxiety messing with me on and off all day. My cookie guy is on vacation so all I have is Ativan that I try not to take to much of. Obviously I rather have my cookies. Well folks that as they say is that. Before I sign off I just want to acknowledge that today is fourteen years since my brother Nick passed away. Can't believe it has been that long. I remember it like it was yesterday. The night before I went in for my biopsy in the hospital, I was just laying in the hospital bed not able to sleep. I know big surprise there. At one point I was half in and out of it. God knows what drugs I was on. One vivid image I have I looking out of the door of my room and seeing my brother walk by.

He just walked past the room slowed down looked at me and smiled. And just waved his hand and nodded his head as if to say " It's not your time, This will pass". Kind of a crazy thing but none the less it was very vivid. They say that they visit us from the other side. Who knows really what is waiting for us but hey it made me feel better and possibly gave me the strength to look at this and deal with it head on. Gone to soon. R.I.P Nick.

SMIB \m/

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Nick Catalano 73-01