A Long Night.

I woke up this morning at about 3:30am in excruciating joint pain. It was awful.

Yesterday I had my regularly scheduled Zomeda infusion. This is the drug that I am taking to keep my bones strong so that I don’t get additional bone metastasizes. The last time I took it was right when I got back from the coast, and the side effects were minimal, a little flu-like feeling for a few days, but that was it. Pretty uneventful. So when I went in for my infusion yesterday, I was expecting the same. I guess there is no same anymore. The nurse did indicate that they frequently suspend this type of treatment during radiation, but did not elaborate as to the reasons why they suspend treatment. I would guess just because it is another tax on an already overwhelmed system, which resulted in a miserable night. When the pain woke me, my right knee and left ankle were throbbing and swollen. I knew my heating pad was downstairs, so I tried to get up and walk and the pain put me on the floor. I couldn’t walk. I sat on the floor and cried. Tears of sorrow, pain, desperation. How does it come to this? How can I go from being a vital working woman in my 40s to an incapacitated cancer patient weeping on the floor in the middle of the night?

I tell this to you not to garner sympathy, but to allow you to share in my burden. I cannot carry this alone, and your love and support is critical to my survival. As the darkness swallowed me in the wee hours of the morning I felt my friends in my heart there with me, reaching out, praying, supporting and loving me. That’s what got me up off the floor. It was your strength, your love that allowed me to put my legs back under me, and slowly raise myself from the ground. It was you that lifted me from the depths; it was you who gave me the strength. Without you, I never would have made it. I would still be in a crumpled heap on the floor.

So, when you think that perhaps you aren’t doing anything, you should know that your very existence, your energy, reaches me when nothing else can. Your love really does move mountains and fill valleys. Your love and support keeps me going when I can’t go anymore. Thank you for allowing me to lean on you, I hope I can repay the favor someday. I know I will pay it forward every chance I can.