Carnival

What a trip.
This whole brain thing is horrifically fascinating.
I'm up at 4 am NOT with crazy spinning.  For the first time.  I think it will get better.  I think it's working.  Hopeful!!
I woke up with the strangest terrible feeling.  Body cramp.  Whole chest, shoulders and back seized in one massive charlie horse.  Heart attack?  Stroke?  Is this the seizure part? WTF?

I stand, it's bad,  it moves across the chest, hard to breath.
Sternum scars still pulling tight, I raise arms to flow with blood, stand, walk keep moving, pace, circle, sit, stand, get away from me.  I want to run from the house, run away from whatever this is.  God.
Feeling like my Grandma Millie now in her later years, always warning us with the certainty that she'd have a stoke in the night.  She would warn us kids every night and we would indeed, worry.

Post radiation muscle spasms.  They will pass with time.
I am losing my hair by the fistfulls now.
My face is a moon pie.
But I digress.  Literally.

I saw the wierdest thing yesterday.

14th street and Irving Place, I'm walking in my bubble of extremely well controlled vertigo with much thanks to meditation and Lorazapan when my triple vision catches a sight.

Two elderly women with walkers going after each other on the corner.  They are having a full on walker fight.  One's screaming at the other and trying to chase her down.  The first one must have gotten in a good one though because the lady right in font of me was spitting blood from her mouth and I believe I might have seen a tooth come out.  I had to side step the bloody spit as she slowly swung her walker up in the air and tried to position it atop the head of lady number 2 who was making her slow motion getaway west on 14th St.   Many expletives were heard.

All this is spinning daylight.  Just as her walker had reached it's laborious crescendo, a man stepped in.  Sirens right there, it was mayhem.  My only validation that it even happened was the random NY commiserate convo that took place after with complete stranger. "did you see that"?  "So much blood"  "Oh my god"  "Jeez"  and ends with, "Crazy".

Off under the radar again.

I love this town.  I fit right in.  If I should happen to go insane soon, please just let me know.

Head Dragons

Then it all falls apart.
Living with uncertainty.  Facing the dragons head on.  Curiously numb.
Brain metastasis.  Final frontier.  12 tiny tumors.  That they can see.  3 in cerebellum.  No balance.  Vertigo constant.  Perpetually seasick.  Vision tripled.  Images sliding off the earth- screaming fast.

Pretend to be normal.

Full brain radiation.  10 hits finished this week.  Symptoms worse, but to be expected.  Seriously- full brain radiation?   I feel trapped in a 50's Sci-Fi scene.

With this treatment the odds of survival are upped to 50 to 70%.  That's good.
Upped to 3 to 4 months.  Not as great.
Internet stats.
Not mine.

Diving Cenotes in Mexico one day, radiation at BI West the next.
Steroidal insanity.  Crackhead energy, can't stop cleaning, then drop to the floor dead nodding out the next moment.  Not hungry, feeling huge.  Sick, metallic taste in my mouth.  Good, cold Sauvignon Blanc is warm salty blood.

Remain positive.  Apologetic.  Right in the middle of work.  So so so so much work.  I'm useless.  It's the nightmare of trying so hard to function but feet are stuck in the ground and no matter how hard I try to stand it's pulling me down into the black.  The spins get faster and faster.  I look down to avoid more dizziness.  Close one eye.
So freaking scary.
Breath in the fear.  Breath in the suffering.  Breath out the fear.  Breath out the pain.
I can't see.

Hope on the horizon, will press on and will survive yet again.  Still reeling from shock, radiation and medication.   Work next week?  Meet with Opthomologists to see if there is an actual vision problem.  Relief from a pair of actual glasses would be ideal.

I'm not sure.  Uncertain.  Oddly calm within this place.

Energy all around.   I bolster up against the eight million other New Yorkers and get to my life everyday.  Hating the hellish reek of the subway, but it holds me up and gets me there.   The anonymity of the city is my refuge.  I can flow with the chaos easily, blending in total awareness yet feel detached, un-present to others.  Look down.  Can't see eyes. too many.  Stand still, try not to tip.  Crosswords barely able to read, puzzles, brain checks vigilant.  Heinous side effects too horrible to mention.  Not to me.
No.
Not this time.

One small joyful thing a day.  Just one little thing.  Helps.  It's everywhere.

We got it early.  This is residual brain swelling, handled by steroids.  I feel wierd.  Surrender.
Breath, meditate.  Boddhisatva.

Slip under the pain, under the earth and into the water.