“I Liked You Better When You Were Sick.”

In case it seems as though life is all sunshine and roses now that I completed my final chemo treatment, the above comment said to me the other day pretty much negates that bright, flowery thought. Doesn’t it?

Oh, yes, I did have my final chemo treatment. It was a special present to me since it fell right on my birthday. My family insisted on celebrating that very day so that we would have a double celebration. We all met at Susan and Kevin’s for dinner. For my gifts I received two tickets to Bette Midler for when she takes over for Celine Dion at Caesar’s. There was also a gift certificate for dinner at one of Caesar’s restaurants so I could have a great night out in a few months. A special gift from J.J. was a $50 gift certificate for Target (pronounced by him as Tarjay), which just happens to be his favorite shopping place?

I thought the visit to my oncologist (which immediately preceded my chemo treatment) was very positive. Krista went into the doctor’s office with me. He thought it was funny when I asked him to “outsource” me to a radiation oncologist on my side of town for the next step in my treatments. This is because radiation tends to run every day for approximately six weeks. If I can have the treatments near where I live and work, it won’t interrupt my day as much as driving 20 miles one way to the Institute for the daily treatment. I had a list of doctors from the closest treatment center, and Dr. Manno named three of them from which I could choose. Needless to say, it required a large volume of phone calls, but I have finally ended up with a consult appointment with a doctor not far away. Along with radiation treatments, I also get to start on my next drug treatment, Herceptin. This I will get to do every week for a month and then taper off to once every three weeks for a year. My teeth? Yeah, I can finally have dental work done again and get my teeth cleaned. Hair? Yeah it’ll start growing back…Dr. Manno said that three weeks after my last chemo, my body will be looking forward to the poison it’s been receiving every three weeks for five months. When the poison doesn’t show up, my hair follicles will start looking around and wondering if they should start growing again. I hate wearing a wig, but more than that I really Hate drawing my eyebrows on every day. I asked the doctor if it was normal to feel a little scared as you near the end of your treatments, and he said it can be because the patient begins to feel as though they’re being cut loose, not going to the Institute so often, etc. I wouldn’t say I feel scared necessarily, but I feel a little strange, coming to the end of the chemo.

Speaking of the last chemo treatment…it was uneventful. I was tired on the weekend (predictable) and then the only way I can describe it is “off center” for the next couple of days (also predictable). It’s a funny kind of inside nervous feeling of being not quite focused, not quite centered, not quite yourself. Since I had planned large chunks of staff development day, the sixth day following treatment, I was a little concerned about how I would pull that off. Two of the people on my team know I have treatments, and I finally told the other two, without giving any details; and I said I was hoping I would be myself by Tuesday…if not in the morning then I should at least be back to normal by afternoon. That turned out to be exactly right. I was shaky in the morning and pretty good by afternoon. My team and Robert insisted I was doing great and that no one could tell there was anything wrong. Everything seemed to go very well.

Teresa came for the weekend. I was so looking forward to her coming. She and Elliott are going to Reno for Thanksgiving and then Christmas here…an every other year switch-off that they started last year. Teresa came the weekend before to have the experience of cooking a turkey, which she likes to do and has been helping with since she was about eleven or twelve. We began the weekend with a girls’ night out, four daughters and their mom at a brewery on Paradise. We went there because Krista’s work folks were having a Happy Hour there, and it seemed as good a place as any. Also, this way Krista could invite Luke to come and meet not only all the Kulesza women in one full swoop but her professional colleagues as well. From what I saw, Luke handled all of these new folks with great finesse. He seemed very personable and at ease with whomever he was talking to…could be he’s a keeper…not everyone fairs so well with five of us all at once. We have traditionally been the kind of family, you need to ease your way in to…too much pressure to meet us all at once.

When I got up Saturday morning, I swear I actually thought to myself that I felt like I did when I was a seven-year-old kid up before everyone else on Christmas morning, waiting for someone to get up so the magic could start. I finally couldn’t take waiting any more, and I woke Teresa up. Basically, I watched her make stuffing and get the turkey ready for the oven. For the rest of the weekend, we mostly just hung out with family. We went to J.J.’s soccer game, saw “Michael Clayton,” (George Clooney lookin’ good but a slow, slow plot), met John at the Ranch following the movie, went to Sue’s on Sunday and had lunch and then went to Jay’s to see the little kids…after that took Teresa to the airport.

So, where did the “I liked You Better When You Were Sick” comment come in? Sometime during the weekend. Why? My answer would be because I’m a snot or even more so I can be quite a bitch given the right conditions. What exactly did that comment mean? I’ll leave it to the reader to interpret…Here are some suggestions…it could have meant:

I liked you better when you were too tired to be a bitch, in a chemo haze, falling asleep again throughout the day shortly after waking up, prowling around at night because of sleeping all day, too tired to talk, answer the phone, take a shower, do laundry, get anything to eat, answer the phone…well, just plain too tired.

Or

I liked you better when you were too busy and too scared to be a bitch because you had a lump in your breast, a biopsy, an angiogram, a lumpectomy, a mastectomy, drains hanging from where there used to be a breast, visiting nurses coming to the home to help you, a port placed inside your arm, and you were looking at starting chemo treatments…

Or

I liked you better when you were too humble and too scared to be a bitch because you were going through chemo and being knocked down every three weeks, losing your hair and buzzing off what was left, losing your eyebrows and your eyelashes, being fitted for a prosthetic, sleeping on a soft little pink cancer pillow if you wanted to turn on your left side because it was still uncomfortable from the surgery, lymph node removal, etc., yet not so great on the right side either because of the port in your arm…

Well, regardless, which of the three above is correct, or if there’s another meaning entirely, does it really matter? Doesn’t it really put into perspective the human condition, though? Doesn’t it truly demonstrate how much one person can try to hurt another? Doesn’t it show how someone can be cut to the core by mere words? AND, really, do those words matter anyway? I remember when I wrote that email to the Goolsby staff, what seems like so long ago now, one of the responses from a teacher who had breast cancer at a young age responded that she’d been through the wringer and would tell me anything I wanted to know. Well, now I know. I’ve been through the wringer and I’ve been through Hell, and maybe there’s more Hell with radiation or Herceptin or whatever else is in store for me. But, “I liked you better when you were sick”…THAT just makes me an ever nastier snot and stronger bitch than I’ve already shown I can be…AND, Oh, just one more little humorous, ironic twist…in a week, he won’t remember that he ever said it, if he hasn’t forgotten it already, but me…I get to hold it deep in my heart until I don’t know when…and now you get to remember it, too…