Beth Caldwell

On Friday, as we were headed for some more HLA platelets, #bestdocever sent The Hubs and me a text explaining that the lung doc doesn’t think that a stint will work on my lung. It was the first time time I’d seen The Hubs having to deal with the reality of my terminal diagnosis, and now, he had to deal with the reality of my mortality, again. This means that some folks from the hospice drop off O2, a machine that makes O2 out of the air, some other things (like a cool table); a nurse will check on me sometime; someone might help The Hubs with some care for me occasionally. We’ll discuss with them the Death with Dignity prescription (we have compleated all the paperwork), and he will write the prescription I’ll need for Death with Dignity.

We’re working on getting what appears to be a shitty company called Quest to get me some oxygen at home but because they’re taking for-fucking-ever to get around to it, I’m borrowing a tank from It sucks that I can’t breathe. It sucks that not being able to breathe keeps me in bed, It sucks that the progress that I’d made cognitively is now sliding backwards because I’m so tired, my brain isn’t functioning right. It sucks seeing the terror in J’s eyes every time I gasp for air.

Let’s talk about what’s going on. It’s kinda cool how you can see my whole liver because it’s so lit up. We could try some chemo if my blood counts get better, like, eribulin or gemcitamine or some other crap, but it’s make me feel more like shit. I won’t be able to answer a lot of messages y’all send, and it’s not because I don’t love you all and appreciate the love you show me.

Here I am dying, getting radiation treatment on my bran that makes me unable to taste salt and also makes me fatigued, living with pneumonia and whatever the hell is on with my lungs, and tomorrow I get to have a PET scan. We’re seeing more groups that aren’t doing as much pink crap as in the past, and groups that are talking about MBC and not just how “great” awareness is. We lay on the ground and we remember the people who have died, and we talk about what we need our government to do for us, and we go to their offices and beg them to help save our lives. When you go to the Stage IV Stampede this year on October 13, and you go lobbying, I want you to remember that Congress owes us their hard work.