It has been an insane, strange and entertaining couple of
weeks. I will say, I have not been bored once and the roller coaster ride is
not over. Those of you who know my fellow
artist, and sister from another mother, Cha Davis, know she is fighting multiple
myeloma and as Hunter S. Thompson might have put it, it’s been a long strange
trip….
Cha has been true to herself and to us, with her fierceness
and determination to keep painting, stay independent and brook no crap from
anyone. She is brutally honest and takes no prisoners, including Teutonic type
thug slug doctors.(oh yes, she did.)
This ride has been a roller coaster from my end; I cannot
even imagine what it is from the driver’s seat, more about that in a minute….
Cha’s bone pain level went as high as Willy Wonka’s elevator
and she wound up in hospital for about nine days in rotten shape. After dealing
with helpless stethoscope carrying marshmallows in scrubs, we finally figured
out there is such a thing as palliative care, a team that is focused only on
pain. The big guns were called in and that made a huge difference. She’s
baa-ack…
The fabulous dragon lady has returned to her lair now, with
the pain under some control, and she is trundling to radiation a few times a
week to slow this shit down if we can. Cha’s friends, Lita and Louise and I, declaimed
ourselves her family, and we have never skated around the fact that this is cancer
and we know how it will end up when the fight is over. I have learned so much
from this experience. To be honest with my fear and feelings and not spout
aphorisms, like you’ll be better soon; or this will pass.
I think the best thing one can do for a person with an
illness like this one, a bitter horrible illness that hits a person you love, is to let
them say what they need to say, don’t hide from their truth, and listen to what
they need from you and give it with an open heart.
I have to say I’m awfully glad Cha is home because although
I love her dearly, giving her giant Maine Coon cat a shot twice a day for his
diabetes and hacking out the cat box, was wearing me down. Besides which Sam
and Mr. Dinsdale only put up with me and fell into her arms when she got home.
I’m sure they were claiming they’d never eaten or been petted since she left.
Fat liars.
Actually the night before she got home there was a party as
Sammy’s house. I got there to shoot up Mr. D. and found catnip splattered all
over the bedroom and the cardboard cat scratcher pretty much resembling brown confetti with cardboard bits everywhere. A good time was had by all obviously.
They got the catnip out from under the sink and partied like it was 1994, no
shame or hangovers either, hairy little shits.
So, Cha was home, the cats were happy and I was going to
take her to her radiation appointment Monday. I drove to her house to pick her
up, wondering what the hell all those people were doing standing around in the
yard? And the air was full of black smoke too. I got out of the car and gaped
like a drunken flounder, the front of her house was smashed, crashed and
trashed. She had decided to move her station wagon, Hester, forward a few feet.
Her foot isn’t working quite right and she couldn’t hit the brake, instead the
car caromed into the porch, hopped up and crashed into her house. Cha broke her
house. Cha was fine and the car was fine, she was horrified but okay. Her
neighbor backed the car off the porch, enter me, stage
right.
It’s actually hard to take something like that in. The front window had turned into a guillotine full of glass and the front door frame
literally broke in two. The storm door was ripped in half and wedged open and a
small chest of drawers was literally stuck in the wall, like a cartoon splat.
All the cupboards on the other side of the wall in the kitchen got knocked over
and everything fell out everywhere. I forced my way in and crawled over the
tipped over counter into a cloud of flour and rubber tire smoke. Assessment: Nothing
on fire, no uncontrolled flow of water or electricity. I opened the windows and
got the entrance clear and got a rattled Cha back in bed to rest. I spent the
next six hours picking up dishes, pans, groceries, and cleaning the wreckage
enough to let the landlord in to assess the mess. My favorite part was a wine
glass holding up a shelf full of dishes which didn’t crash, thank you wine
glass.
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| Down the Rabbit Hole |
Do you know how hard it is to get double paned broken glass
out of a window frame? Don’t even try it. Poor Cha, through this ruckus, stuck in bed, completely
mortified and unable to help. The boys
next door (22=boys) got their pickup, a Sawzall and a come-along and pulled the
wall out of its bowed in position. A sledge hammer brought the door frame
straighter and the door would almost close.
I got my weed eater from home and cleared a path to the back
door and about 8 p.m. we had the place buttoned up (thanks to my husband for
his help) and the front tarped over. Her landlord is an amazing guy, didn’t
turn a hair and didn’t freak. I got ice cream at the store for Cha. Ice cream
makes everything better it seems, so I went home and had a bowl full of my own.
The next day, I went back with the mop to lend a hand and
keep Cha from overdoing it, we both hate it when our space is wrecked, although
in my case that might be hard to believe from time to time.
Cha kept trying to apologize for all the work I was doing. I know the feeling when the Universe seems determined that the lesson is to learn is
to accept with grace the love and care you are given. When you are independent
and fiercely so, that’s a hard one. I know when Terry was hurt that was the
hardest piece for me, to accept with grace what was given freely.
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| One day at a time |
Here’s the last thing, when my friends say, you are working
too hard, take care of yourself, yada yada yada, I would ask them to remember
when my sweet husband almost died 12 years ago in a motorcycle accident, if it
had not been for the deep and constant kindness and giving of friends, I would
not have made it to today, I’m simply paying it forward. I help Cha because I
can, and because so many helped me. It’s not a burden; it’s a privilege and a
price I pay with gratitude, but bitch, if you hit another house you are so on your
own!
