First, I'd like to apologize to all those whose innate sense of biological purity was dented in any way by my assertion that I am a slug. I do realize that slugs are hairless, but had never considered the biological illogicality inherent in my analogy. Let's blame the drugs -- such a convenient excuse I now have for everything! Thank you, Dave, for helping me realize that I probably should have said I was a sloth [and also for the sly comment about the other six deadly sins]. It is possible that I could, in biological honesty, compare myself with a slug at some point during this experience.

Second, I have attained a new level. I was going to be late for a meeting tonight so I just ambled as fast as I could out the door and drove to the meeting and didn't even think about my interesting head covering (uncovering?) until I was talking with someone and put a hand up to scratch my head. I completely forgot that I have a hair-don't! This is exciting for me, because it means that I am not hung up on my appearance, odd though it may be.

Third, I am impressed and grateful for my children's ability to cook. Reuben made scrambled eggs for me on Tuesday, and Joseph made pancakes this morning. I supervised from my chair, though I did get up to show Reuben how to not squish the eggshell while getting the inside out. He was such an apt learner that the next egg was perfectly cracked and deposited in the bowl.

And for the finale to this essay, I feel that I am now on my way out of the pit. Today is Day Nine, and I have managed to a) rinse dishes and then sit and play a game with Reuben; b) find the dirty underwear to wash and then sit and play a game with Reuben; c) make the machine wash the underwear and then sit and play with Reuben; d) walk to Cindy's and sit and give her a piano lesson and walk home; e) make the machine dry the underwear and then lie down and play a game with Reuben; f) sit and enforce practicing and homework; and g) drive to the store and push a cart while the kids loaded it with pumpkins, milk, and other sundry necessities like mini Heath bars and pumpkin goop scoopers!

I had my second treatment on Tuesday the 21st. It went much faster this time. The nurse who put the butterfly thing into my port disinfected the area and said, "Take a deep breath," and STABBED ME! I jumped and yelled, quite loudly, I think, although I wasn't really listening to myself because I was too intent on the pain. I could tell she felt badly about it, so I tried to say something about this being my first time, which only made her feel worse. I had to sit and breathe and concentrate on looking at the clock with a blue rim in the next room for what seemed to me a long string of seconds before I was able to smile and feel like walking back to the waiting room. I heard myself say, "Well, that was more exciting than I was anticipating," and found understanding in the eyes of some of the other patients sitting there.

I had a seat by the puzzle table that is always up in the waiting room, so I concentrated on that, and a nice woman sat across from me. We had a good time bantering back and forth about her daughter and my mohawk and how I was so awful as to actually find places for five or six pieces when she handed them to me. The nerve of me! I love talking to people like this, who can just strike up a friendship over colored bits of cardboard and a common cancerous enemy, with funny little comments and laughter.

The doctor suggested that I try taking one Claritin and three Aleve to alleviate (hee hee) the aches. James had brought me Aleve as a surprise, and I already had some Claritin. I took them Thursday evening after Christopher's band concert and again Friday evening. The majority of the aches went away -- they were hovering around the edges, asserting themselves every now and then -- but I was completely wiped out. I slept Friday until about 3 p.m., and was so lost in drug fog that when Elisabeth called to say she is coming for Thanksgiving, I wasn't sure it had really happened, and I had absolutely no recollection of saying anything to her in reply. I hope I was coherent. After I got up, the drug fog seemed to center in my nasal passages and behind my eyes, and then radiate in a band around the rest of my head. It wasn't an ache, really, more like a band of pressure or weight that increased the mass of my head so it felt huge and unwieldy. I was absolutely drained. I felt hollow, like all my energy had been scooped out and my body was a husk lurching in slow motion.

Saturday was much the same. When I made it down to the kitchen for breakfast, the floor was so nasty that I called Sariah to sweep it. I sat on the low blue stool and retrieved the spoons and measuring cups and pencils out of the dust pile before she brushed it up into the dustpan, and then I was exhausted. I'm surprised I made it back upstairs to bed. When I ventured down a couple of hours later, I managed to sit in a chair and check library books off the list as Nathaniel found them and put them in bags to be returned to the library, and then I had to go back to bed. This gave rise to my new modus operandi: Think hard about how much energy will be required by any course of action and whether you are willing to expend that energy before embarking upon said course.

Therefore, I saved up all my energy for church on Sunday. I felt a bit better that morning, but by the time Stephen had driven me to church and I had made it to the pew, I needed to just sit, and concentrated on gathering energy for the move to the organ for the choir number. It's a wonderful thing that something I love as much as playing the piano and organ is really just sitting on a bench wiggling my fingers up, down, back and forth! Such minimum of movement is a perfect fit for my current requirements of physical exertion (p.e. = zero). The other exciting thing about Sunday is I didn't have head buzz because I didn't have to take any drugs! Hooray!

As I re-read this, it is kind of inside out and backwards. Oh, well. I have a whole list of things I've forgotten to write about, anyway, so I'll just head to bed and enjoy my Helen MacInnes for a bit.