I Am Apparently Not Very Good at Having Cancer

In the first few days after my diagnosis, I was doing remarkably, surprisingly well.

The obvious explanation for that was that I was in denial. But I wasn't. I had digested the information from the retina specialist. I knew that things could end badly, by which I mean I knew that I could die from this, although statistically speaking, it was more likely that I wouldn't. I was not bitter when I saw other people experiencing happy life events; in fact, I was comforted: there is still good in the world, and I can take joy in it.

But man, have I ever tanked lately. To put it simply, I have been depressed. Not the constantly-crying, feeling sad kind of depressed. The "Nothing Seems Terribly Interesting or Worth Doing" kind. I have managed the bare minimum of household chores. Enough laundry gets done that people don't need to turn their underwear inside out to get another day's use out of it. There is enough to eat, because I have gone to the grocery store. I even managed to produce a fairly nice dinner and cake for my husband's birthday. But the twice-weekly vacuuming has fallen by the wayside. Don't even ask about dusting. Things pile up on surfaces because I lack the energy to put them away or, more frequently, to instruct their owners to do so. I still give a damn, but not enough to do anything about it.

It is just after noon, and I am still in my bathrobe, because taking a shower seems like an awful lot of work. It takes a long time for the shower to heat up, and there's not a lot of water pressure. Meanwhile, I have to stand in a cold bathroom and marvel at just how dirty white grout can get in a short period of time. I had intended at one time to have the bathroom redone, but my tile budget is going to get eaten up by CT scans, and that ticks me off. I feel like a drain on the system.

And speaking of drains on the system: one of my son's few chores is unloading the dishwasher. Not reloading it, just unloading it. When I pointed out to him in the nicest possible way that the dishwasher has been ready for unloading since yesterday, and that my cleanup of the kitchen sort of hinges on my ability to put the more recently dirtied dishes in an empty dishwasher, he rolled his eyes at me. He rolled his eyes. When I inquired, in the nicest possible way, why he rolled his eyes, he responded that unloading the dishwasher "isn't very fun." Whereupon I unloaded upon him a litany of things in my life that "aren't very fun." I didn't use the word cancer, which we have not introduced into the discussion yet, but I came perilously close. I did use the phrase "washing your underwear."

I went downstairs and waited fifteen minutes for him to unload the dishwasher. When he failed to do so, I did it myself, as loudly and as passive-aggressively as possible. When my son and his sister timidly inquired as to the reason for the ruckus, I might have intimated that they would find themselves the subject of an episode of "Hoarders" by the end of my five-day hospital stay. Then I burst into tears. Perhaps I should ask if I can get some electroconvulsive therapy while I am cooling my heels inpatient.