No rest for the stupid
The chemo is over, and if all goes well, I'll never have it again, yet I still feel like shit. I still puked this morning, although weakly. I still have an awful taste in my mouth. I still have this gremlin in my throat that makes me want to voluntarily barf, as though there were anything to bring up. I am now 169 pounds. A week ago I was more than 180.
But worse than all that, or as as result of it, I don't really like myself at all. I have a feeling of worthlessness. I have little money, and I won't have any for a while. I hate my living circumstances. I feel stupid, listless, sad and angry, although not explosively so the way I did in October. I don't feel as though I can attend to anything properly. I wonder what I am doing at work and why they even need me at all. I better understand people that feel as though they are fakes about to be discovered. I have a make up exam tomorrow that I doubt that I will even write because I cannot even find the material I need to study. It's not even that hard, but I will fail this course. I will be a failure yet again. I can barely find the will to move. I feel like a skeleton in many ways.
This will probably pass in a few days; we are going to Brockville on Saturday and I will relax with my family. I should really start feeling better, but who knows if I will even make it to Brockville? I have a car-rental failure rate of 25%. It nearly failed last time. Even though I have enough money on my credit card and my driver's license is in order, I would not be surprised if I were stranded in Montreal for the holidays. I really wouldn't, because I fuck this like that up all the time. I am not really good at much anymore. (UPDATE: I thought I had enough on my credit card, but apparently some charges went through, and now I don't. Luckily, I found out early, as in ten seconds ago.)
January is supposed to start a year of renewal for me. Back to work, back to school, back to health. School may not happen, and health? Let's hope. I have to make an appointment to get a PET-CT scan sometime next month so they can say that the cancer is finally gone. This is where I start to get worried. I wasn't worried when I was diagnosed. I knew that I would beat it. I wasn't worried during or after the surgery, or even during the first three rounds of chemo. They were new life experiences that not everyone gets to experience. They say that they often change your outlook for the better. But I may have had blinders on. I never thought about mortality, or possibly worse, compromised living for a long time until very recently. Most cancer survivors worry about the possibility of it coming back. That's where I am. Can't relax until the scan comes back negative. And maybe not even then.
I need to make money. I think money would make me happy, if only to reduce stress. I owe money everywhere. If I were to take my entire paycheck and put it into debts for the next six months, I wonder if I would be out of debt. No, because I wouldn't be able to eat for pay monthlies. It never ends. I can't manage my life. I don't do things very well. I need more money and better skills. Maybe that is why I should forget about school, because it costs money, not because I won't have the energy to do it.
I know that this is a whiny entry, but I don't care. I feel as bad as I ever have during chemo, or post surgery, or any time in my life. I see myself having to pull over from the highway on Saturday so that I can have a full self hate-on. I hate myself right now, and I don't know what to do about it.
To top it all off, I have to do Christmas shopping. I have to go outside. It's just more stress that I don't need right now.