Today, I know I'm dying.

I have good days and bad days, but usually it's parts of days. I did get a shower taken, which requires a lot of prep and then changing of the trach's collar afterwards. This is a 2-person job. The whole thing wiped me out to the point where I could do nothing else. I've felt pain, then taken the meds and felt like my head was swollen and I couldn't keep my eyes open.

Palliative care my ass. I'm always in pain, meds or no meds. If I don't have a headache, my left elbow hurts. Or my G-tube stoma burns. Or I get that spike-in-the-ear sensation that means my meds have worn off. I have not had more than 20 good minutes all day. This isn't living, this is existing.

I'm trying to fight, but I'm overwhelmed. With my physical discomfort, with all the paperwork I have to do to keep insurance and social security. With the few things I hoped I'd be able to do before I'm out of time. With feeling helpless and feeble. With pain and discomfort. With cleaning the inner cannula and coughing up gunk.

Here's the process of going to bed. I do the usual, brush my teeth, wash my face. I've taken the meds, which are supposed to give me 4 hours of relief. I put on my jammies, and lie down on the wedge I have to sleep on now because I can't lay flat. My neck is so stiffened by the cancer I can barely more it enough to nod or shake. I take off my glasses and hearing aide, turn out the light, get myself tucked in and put on the carpal tunnel braces I've slept in for years. Slowly I relax. Then I start coughing. Doesn't matter if I've just cleaned the cannula, doesn't matter if I haven't coughed for hours. The change in position causes gravity to pull down mucus that wasn't in the way before. So I sit up, turn on the light, put on my glasses, take off the wrist braces, and go into the bathroom for another round of washing out the cannula and coughing. Sometimes I cough so hard I poop, so then I have to go to the toilet and clean that up. Maybe spend a half an hour doing all this. Back into bed repeating the process, and I try again. Takes maybe four tries before I finally can breathe easy and relax. By then it's midnight.

I sleep for 2 hours, then wake up either from pain or coughing. I go take pain meds, clean the cannula again, and get back into bed. This repeats again  3 or 4 times during the night. Sometimes I even get 3 hours at a time.

At the 8 a.m. wake-up, I have breakfast. I'm up for an hour maybe, and can't keep my eyes open, so i go back to bed. This is the time I often get 3 consecutive hours. But I don't feel rested. How could anyone after all that?

The doctors say I probably have months to live. When I feel good, I hope they're wrong. Today I honestly wonder if it'll really be that long.

"You're dying of cancer."

Pow. Right between the eyes. I knew this, but it hadn't been put that bluntly before. I like this doctor. I hate sugar-coating and not being told something 'because it will upset you.' Absorbing it is another matter.

I. Am dying. Of cancer. No risk factors for it, can't speak to family tendencies as I'm adopted and will never know anything about my biological father. I've met my birth-mother's family, and no cancer there. Both of my parents - my real parents, the ones who raised me from birth but with whom I share no heredity, died of lung cancer. Both were heavy smokers. Never took a puff in my life - always thought it stank badly so I was never once tempted. But this started with oral cancer, on my tongue.

Of which I am dying. Seriously didn't think this would be what got me. Having had a lifelong weight problem, I would have expected heart disease. But my heart is strong, my lungs too. But I'm still dying. My cancer metastasized, and tumors are wrapping themselves around the base of my skull. Cancer is eating my skin as well, causing oozing lesions on my neck, two so far. I have a tracheostomy tube in to keep my airway from being crushed, and it's permanent. My face now looks like I have the mumps on the left side. The skin cancer is also closing off my left ear canal. First I couldn't get the hearing aid in it, now I'm not sure a toothpick would fit. Not going to try, it's painful to touch it.

What the cancer has taken from me so far: My ability to speak, to eat, to swallow. My hearing in my left ear. Wearing earrings - hurts too much to put the left one in. Earrings have been something I've worn daily since I got them pierced at age 15. They were my trademark. I can't turn my head or nod more than a tiny inch or so. My left shoulder and arm hurt from my neck to my elbow, and it's hard to use that arm. To reach up I have to push it with my right arm. I can't find a comfortable position for my left arm sitting down.

I'm anchored to the pain meds, the canned formula food, and the suction device which my friend Diane has termed the Suctionator. Travel? Hah. Doing a little shopping or going to church requires enough equipment for a sherpa.  My bucket list used to have things like Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Florida on it. Can't do that. Now it has things like getting my house painted in the colors I wanted, getting the clutter cleared out, getting another novel or two finished, and petting kittens.

I have one book I know I can finish if I can get it through the writing group. That will put my output up to nine. I probably can't write another. This makes me so sad. I had a couple dozen books I wanted to write, and they would have been good stories. No one can write them the way I would have, though I have a young friend, age 13, who has decided she wants to study my style and write them. I'll leave her copious notes, but it won't be the same. Still, inspiring a young writer who may be so much greater than I've been would be a good legacy.

Regrets? I have too many. I wish I wasn't so damned introverted. I wish I hadn't been such a TV addict. I wish I traveled better - I got sick on every single vacation I ever took. So now, in what should have been a nice quiet retirement, I get sick again. Permanently. Figures.

Well, hell. I'm not dead yet. So much to do and so little time. But I'm still here, and I'm still me.