No. 78

It's not #87. It's #78. Get it straight.

small victory only a 2 hour wait till they stick me. or stuck me. i clutch my shiny red number. it's like a lottery ticket. shiny red lottery ticket. can you see the irony of it all in my tired half smile? barf. "Anticipatory nausea" is what they call it. if i weren't so sick and tired and sick of all of this waiting and vomit creeping slowly up my esophagus i might see the humour in it. i observe the man and his son across from me in the waiting room. i've seen them twice before. they are on my "shift". They always wait as long or longer than i do, they seem to have a quiet but close relationship....and the father seems somehow "resigned" to this process that he is undergoing. they talk "car talk". the father looks to be in his earlier sixties. they eat potato soup from the cafeteria and i like the smell. they're relaxed. I like them. who am I kidding though - I'm totally grasping at straws. It's a good past-time while my hands sweat and leave moisture spots on my lottery ticket. My number is called. No. 78. "that's me!!" i half yell and jump up waving my card. I head to the "Chemo suite" and leave the my jealous seatmates behind in the waiting room fog.

as soon as i get in the room i feel it. i feel the waves of nausea get bigger and bigger and loom larger and larger. And i am frustrated. and angry. and sad. i'm ashamed of myself for feeling nauseous and frustrated and angry and sad. I want to be strong. I want to be a warrior and a "fighter" and all that shit. I do not want to show any weakness in this room...but I can feel the vomit just sitting in my throat and I hear the machine that is filling me with poison/healing agents (?!) and feel it going through the needle into my vein...and i feel weak. very very weak. i feel the weight of the entire thing. the entire fucked up situation i am in. and it sucks. and i can't cry here. not now. not in this room around these people who may or may not be way worse off than I am. i can't do it. so i try so hard to think of something else. to repress it. but the tears start to come anyway. I try to hide behind the hanky and I feel like a bigger idiot. i feel like a coward. i wish i was stronger. oh the smell almost does me in - the putrid acrid smell of this room. I hate it. I'm such a baby.

it's finally over. No. 78 piles her shit in the car and goes home - barf bag in hand.
at this moment the remaining 2 feel like mount Fuji. God help me be strong.