A Broken Crow

nausea kicked in promptly before lunch.
i hear your voice on the other end of the phone while i'm at work, trying to reassure me that everything is fine.
it isn't fine, surely, but i've grown accustomed to this by now.
later, i watch the simpsons calmly while you hurl everything you've got inside you into the waste basket beside the bed. you're sides shudder under the strain and your voice cracks, but you, you're a fucking soldier. you never even flinch. not once.
the nurses mix benadryl into your maxoram and i watch you sleep for two hours before dragging myself home.
i kiss your face, all over. hard. i want to leave a mark and i don't know why.
i kiss your face all over.
i am not myself.

brendan is here, sleeping on an air mattress on my floor for the next week.
everything is happening.
everything is getting closer and closer, barreling down.

iain is still feeling well, although his elaborate drug-cocktail of happy drugs to counter-act the chemo side effects have left him logey and a little stumbly. tomorrow is the last day for busulfan, after which there are two days of iv chemo. cyclophosphamide, we meet again.

today i watched seven episodes of arrested development.
i meticulously cleaned my apartment, like it mattered.
i sat out on my balcony in the dark, which is never really dark and the quiet that is really a dull roar of commerce and activity. it is the difference of living in the city i suppose.

i wonder if i'll be able to sleep when this is over.

chemo begins.

busulfan (the chemo), ativan (anti-anxiety), decadron (a steroid), zofran (an anti-nauseant), dilantin (anti-seizure), heprin (a blood thinner).
pills and needles and bags of clear fluids that seem all too innocuous.

iain's nausea from the last few days seems to have subsided and he managed to get a decent day's worth of food into him. gizelle showed up at supper time with pizza from alexandria's and managed to save iain from a dish that the hospital simply calls "chicken in golden sauce". you know what that means. sub-gravy. probably urine. whatever the case, the pizza arrived with fortuitous timing.

iain's menu for saturday indicated that he would be having "m'balls" for lunch. no no. not meat balls. just the m. say it fast and it sounds like "my balls". "m'balls" in "p'apple sauce"...what could be more appealing?

when i come home at night from the hospital, i keep expecting him to be there waiting for me. i always forget that the door will be locked.

if the transplant is day zero (like ground zero, but for iain's immune system?), then today is day minus eight.

three hours of drug information. am i fucking glad that i'm not responsible for that schedule anymore. for those not in the know. iain was admitted early into the hospital. because of his "rapidly growing mass" he runs the risk of "tumorlicis" (which i'm sure i've spelled wrong) and is essentially when the cancer is killed off by the chemo so rapidly that his blood counts go fucko.

iain's room in BMT isn't such a bad set up. he has his own tv, for free this time. a nice big flat screen. he also has his own dvd player and stereo and mini fridge. i guess they try to make you comfortable since they know you're going to be confined to a few square feet of floor for the better part of a month.

i put up a ramones poster by iain's bed, but he wouldn't let me put a "castle awesome" sign on his door.

i'm tired and sad and i miss my boyfriend and there's nothing i can do about it. i'm sleeping alone for the rest of the summer. i can't sleep through the night anymore and i can't listen to any music without crying about something. my eating habits have become sporadic and bizarre. yesterday i couldn't eat a meal, but i ate pickled beets out of the jar while standing over the sink. i want to hug everyone i see. i want to slap everyone i see across the face. i want to sleep right now but i can't.

day minus eight and counting.

Customer: "What's this 'El Toucan' coffee?"

Me: "It's a dark roast."

Customer: "So why do they call it 'El Toucan'?"

Me: "Because it's made from real birds."

Customer: "........"

Me: "They scream when you grind them."



Incidentally, this person did not order an 'El Toucan'. They ordered a tea and gave me a look that was somewhere between fear and pity. Later, I told a customer that I kept a collection of severed toes. He laughed, but only to appease me.

we're in. we're golden. we've slid into home with the bleachers full of screaming people. let me tell you - this apartment is perfect. on moving day we had no less than twelve movers with seven cars between them.my enormous thanks to everyone who got up early on a holiday to help. the whole operation took less than two hours and probably resembled some sort of hostile takeover with armies infiltrating from every side.

on the first night we watched the fireworks from our balcony and enjoyed the fresh(?) breeze off of the harbour.

the next day the elevators decided to be fussy bitches and not work, or perhaps were in service to some other new tentants like myself. no problem, i think to myself. i'll just lug this broken down cardboard and giant bags of garbage down to the refuse room via the stairs, right? right? wrong. while pressing one in the elevator brings one to the refuse room, exiting at one on the stairs leads to an underground parking lot. and don't suggest going to the next floor up, because in that instance, two really does mean two. go figure. in the end, i dragged my mountain of trash through the parking lot and out through mysterious unlabeled door number one. i find myself over the fence in the back of the building by the loading bay. i trample through the carefully planted gardens and find my way though the back entrance to the refuse room, covered in bits of plants and sweating like a whore in church.

aside from garbage escapades, everything is fantastic. our balcony is amazing. our bedroom is huge and our fridge has this adorable wobble everytime i open the freezer. i call him limpy and he is like my son.

when the windows are open, all we can hear are the seagulls scavenging the shoreline.

we should have our phone hooked up by tomorrow and the number will stay the same.
come visit us.