Thursday 9 February 2012

Being equal to something

A little while ago, well, probably 15 years or something, I read a Barbara Vine book called "The House of Stairs". I was probably too young to really understand it properly but there was a character called Bell in it and she was a bit of a funny one. When someone asked her to do something she didn't want to do she'd say, "I don't think I'd be equal to that". Other characters muse on what a funny expression it is but I think it makes perfect sense.

This probably won't be a nice post to read, nor to write, but I want to. Last night, after visiting the hospital I was very tired and scared and got very very upset. I had decided last week that I didn't think I'd be equal to having chemotherapy* and last night I talked about that with my partner. Well, I say "talked", it was more like bawling and wailing so hard I couldn't breathe. It was not the happiest hour of our relationship.

I felt that I simply couldn't face it. I'd had enough already. I was sick of having blood taken, and simply knowing about it all. I didn't ask for any of this. I just wanted what everyone else seems to have easily (and I know it's never that simple, but that's how it feels). It's terrifying to have the various chemotherapy drugs explained to you, terrifying to be told that if you need to be admitted you go in the very day they decide you should be. It feels that there should be another way - is there nothing *I* can do to help myself? Nothing herbal, holistic, meditative? It feels there should be an alternative.

There's so little choice too. It's just taken for granted that of course you'd be willing to go into hospital and endure the treatment. Why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you want to be well?

But it's not about that. It's about being equal to something. Being able to willingly submit yourself to the treatment regime. Willingly submit yourself to what someone else is telling you is good for you, when every part of you is screaming that it can't be. And again, the unfairness of it, that I just wanted what everyone else has comes back to taunt me.

So I decided I wouldn't. If they called me, I wouldn't go. I'd give it a week or two, more than is advised, then maybe I'd go in. Or I'd run away somewhere, to avoid the calls and letters, friends and family telling me, it's for your own good.

What about me? What about what I want? What about what I wanted? It's impossible not to keep coming back to this thing, to scream it, cry it out...All I wanted was a baby. Just one. I've never wanted three or four. Just one, to be my child, to raise, to love.

It was a hard night.

It was a night of processing all the information outside of myself, because to try to do it inside myself would be impossible. And I think, I hope, that perhaps now I might be equal to it. I am full of the most admiration for women that have gone through it. I can't imagine myself ever being so brave, so strong. And if I get that call, perhaps I will pack a bag and run away. I'm not saying I won't. But maybe it won't be the first thing I do.

*NB I am in the early stages of follow-up and so far the results do not suggest I will need to have further treatment. However, this is beyond my control and subject to the results of the fortnightly blood tests I will have until my HCG level reaches zero.

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