But…since this is my journal, here is where it *is* about me.
So, yesterday was a hard day. I know it was much harder for Jay than it was for me (and if you haven’t read his update, hop on over and do so, ’cause I’m not going to rewrite it all here…as if I could do the story any justice!), but…there was enough not-easy to go around.
The part about having to leave the room while they were jabbing at him with needles…that’s a funny thing I get. It’s not squeamishness about blood, per se; I’m female, and, um, the female of our species gets plenty of close familiarity with blood by the time she’s a teenager. It’s more of an empathy issue, where I cannot stand to see the person I love in pain. I’d have much rather all that jabbing and poking have been done on *me*, frankly. Not that I like pain–I’m actually quite a wuss about pain, I have a very low threshold for it–but it’s worse to watch it being inflicted upon someone I care deeply about.
I get this with public speaking, too. Which, as everyone knows, it’s hard to imagine something more ridiculous than Jay with stagefright, being uncomfortable speaking before an audience…but, seeing him on stage, it makes me a little nervous. As if it’s me, with my own deep and irrational fear that you’re all looking at me and I’ve got nothing to say.
For the important parts of the caring-supporting-partner role, I’ve got that down, no problem. I can be attentive and alert and rational in the scary consultations, and take notes, and ask questions, and hold it all together. When the darkness and the Fear swamps him, I can hold him and let him cry and tell him that we’re in this together, not to worry, I’m here, I’m not going anywhere… Even for the general optimism and positive thinking, that’s just my nature: we’ll beat this, whatever it turns out to be. Bring it on. It doesn’t scare me.
Funny, that. The prospect of chemo, of holding his hair while he’s sick, of all the assorted medical uglinesses of that–I can visualize it, and, while I sure wouldn’t love it, it doesn’t frighten me, doesn’t knock me over. But seeing a stern woman jab at his arm and say, “Oh, that’s not good”–I have to leave the room, and to do so so obviously that the nice nurse comes out and asks if I’m all right.
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So, now we wait till Monday. Jay is much calmer today–busy now with work stuff, but we both slept like crazy last night, and all the drama and angst of yesterday is behind us. I know we’ll both be getting increasingly nervous up until Monday at 2pm–after all, we won’t *know* anything till then, and that’s what this is all about–but for now, whew. And SteamCon will be totally fun. After the hospital, and a very late lunch, and some errands, we ducked into a fantastic thrift store yesterday where I found a long leather trenchcoat for $16. $16! And a couple of other cool things. Retail therapy FTW! And no sales tax. I love Oregon.
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It was very nice to spend so much time with tillyjane. Though we agreed that just about anywhere other than a hospital would have been better; next time, we will try hiking. And amid all the chatting, we did get a lot of reading done–I made a lot of progress on The Book of Joby, which is cool because I’ll get to hang out with the author this weekend. And that’s always more fun if you’ve actually read their work. 🙂
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So that’s the news of the headspace of the witch. Now, to shower, repack, and get ready to drive 200 miles in the rain…