Milestones and Millstones

Or,

"I Wish There Was A Different Word That Better Expressed Exactly What Hope Is."

Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak whispers the o’er-fraught heart, and bids it break.
- Shakespeare, Macbeth

If this post comes out a bit jumbled and confused, then I’m sorry. It’s because I had a completely different idea in mind to write about and then something happened that made everything look different again. I’ll try to explain.

I haven’t been completely honest with you. It’s not that I’ve told you any lies, or at least not knowingly and that hardly makes it a lie if that’s the case. It’s just that I have withheld certain things, either to maintain mine and my husband’s privacy (of course), I wasn’t ready to discuss it, or I didn’t think others would be up for reading about it. But certain events have taken place over the course of the past couple of weeks to nudge me in the direction of getting some things off my chest.

In reading back over my posts, I have skated over the top of the one thing that undoubtedly has lodged most permanently and sorrowfully in my psyche. It is my deepest pain and my darkest space, and every so often it clubs me over the head and drags me off to torture me once again. I have hidden this millstone so artfully under my disguise that some may forget it is there. But I feel its weight. And perversely, I’m not ready to choose to put this burden down just yet.
I used to hate “hope”. Firstly, it reminds me of Days of Our Lives characters Beau and Hope, a pathetic pair who endured outrageous misfortunes to always be reunited, even after we long stopped caring. Also, it’s a sappy word that puts me on my guard when I read it, and can be over-sentimentalised and tritely trotted out Pollyanna-style, but those are not the reasons why I hated “hope”. I used to be on a repetitious monthly treadmill of “hope” and I can tell you, it was not my friend.

I’m going to lose some readers at this point. This is not going to be light reading, not for a few paragraphs yet. But it’s a funny thing, because hope is what’s going to keep you reading, if you decide to.

We are socially conditioned to expect to be capable of having children. We all assume we are fertile, until we find we are not. And here’s the kicker – there can be no reason for this. Some get to have kids, and some don’t, and that’s all there is to it. Or is it? says hope. Hope (the abstract noun, not the DOOL character) whispers in the recesses of your mind: if there is no reason for this not to happen, then surely there is still a chance that it could? And so, Day 1 of the monthly treadmill is rubbish, because your period started, but by Day 14, you’re hoping again, and you go right on hoping until Day 28, then Day 1 rolls around again. And this happens over and over for years.

And then you get help with it all. You accept that you can’t make it happen, just the two of you, so you get a team of people behind you. You get blood tests, and laparoscopic surgery, and your partner gets semen tests, and you get injections, and hormones, and nasal sprays, and ultrasounds, and follicle counts, and egg pick-ups, and with all this intervention, you think this really has to happen. And hope has become like your worst enemy and yet it’s your oldest and truest friend. It builds you up, buoyant, and anything seems possible, until the crushing reality arrives: that some things aren’t possible, some things don’t happen the way you want them to. And there is no logic, no philosophy, no art, no music, no written word, to explain it. Or make it feel better.

Hope is an inadequate word. It masquerades as something quite simple, and knowable, and straightforward. You know what hope is. But really, there is so much more to it. You can dread hope. You can’t control it; you can’t stop it from springing up from nowhere, and when it’s there, you can try and shove it away, squash it down but it won’t go. It leaks in under the cracks of the doors without you noticing. It is just THERE. Uninvited, unbidden. Like a blank, flat fluorescent light, dully buzzing, and blinking back on after you’ve tried to shut it off. Pure torturous evil and sweet blessed relief. How can hope be both those things? Why doesn’t the word express it better?

So the punishing ritual had to stop. Hope wouldn’t let us actually close the door; we just stopped resorting to the production line techniques we had undertaken. And we let things go for awhile, using naturopathic potions and trying to rein in our expectations, and make plans for enjoying ourselves, being thankful for what we had.

We got pregnant.

Hope, I really hate you.

Hope can transform from a humble, tentative wish into a full-blown monster of expectation. It can multiply and expand, changing from that dreary buzzing fluorescent light into bursting conflagrations of sun-like rays beaming throughout the universe. Hope morphs into gargantuan emotions like joy, a word which people hardly ever use because what it represents is so elusive, or goes unrecognised in lives expecting to make do with iPhones and lattes.

If “doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother”*, then disappointment is hope’s big ugly unhygienic inbred cousin with halitosis. There is a direct relationship between the magnitude of the hope and its corollary, disappointment. Find the inverse of the bursting sunrays and you begin to have some idea. The cruel joke played on me dished up first joy, then worry, then fear, then dread, followed by two large servings of disappointment and grief, side by side. I was full to overflowing with this indigestible muck. I spat out the joy, and swallowed the worry, fear, dread and disappointment whole, but I keep chewing over the grief. Mixing the metaphor as is my wont, grief for my baby is the millstone around my neck.

I could choose to put it down, but I won’t just yet. Hope won’t let me. Even though my final “fertile” years are being eroded by cancer treatments and surgery, and by the time it is all finished and I am recovered I will be into the age of much greater risk, as long as it still hurts it shows that deep down no matter what I say to myself, I still want it. And really, I can’t expect to have it anymore. It is my deepest and darkest hurt.

But here is the problem: I am infected with hope. I am contaminated with it; its reek is all over me. It dogs my steps, and stalks my dreams.

The best news I’ve had in a year occurred this week. My cancer count is down to the level of someone without cancer. This result comes at my half way milestone for chemo, and changes the remainder of my course of treatment. It brings forward my expectations of recovery, and changes the landscape of my thinking. Those big bursting sunrays happened in my life just this week, and I felt joy. If this can happen, then what else might be possible?

Hope, my old friend, you stink. Welcome back.


* Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

I Am Not Alone

I am being followed. Watched. Day and night. 24/7. I'm being stalked; inscrutable eyes are monitoring my every move. There's more than one set of eyes, and I think they're working as a team. The dark one takes the nights, and the light haired one is covering the days. Sometimes I can sense there's one of them under my bed. Every now and then I feel breathing close to my face. It's accompanied by a deep rumbling sound. I'm not too worried - it's purring.

So it's no suspenseful thriller. In fact, I'm coming to see it as animal therapy, and you can't put a price on it.

In our household, we have a dog, a cat and a fish. I know, some of you are questioning the inclusion of the fish, but I can't help but feel a loyalty towards the living things that arrive on my little bit of real estate (just call me St Francis of Assisi) and Lazarus the fish cannot go unrecognised. This loyalty also includes the blue tongue lizards, possums, mice, magpies, sulphur-crested cockatoos, currawongs, rainbow lorikeets, occasional kookaburras and even pestilential rabbits (it's their cute bunny tails that get me) that drop by from time to time. Strange how this loyalty or affection stops dead at noisy miners. Boy, do they need a natural predator, and fast.

Being at home and largely unoccupied for the last nine months I have had an extraordinary amount of quality time with my domestic pets. Some of you know of them, some also know what the bonds are like between animal and owner, and some can guess at the characters and natures of my pets because you are familiar with them. I thought it was time they had their moment in the sun, so I can share exactly and what they have been up to and how that affects me.

Frankly, Lazarus may have died by the time I have finished this post, but there's just no telling with him. A while back I was inspired by my sister’s kids getting a fish tank and each choosing a fish of their own to "look after".  It didn't work out so well for those fish, as it turns out now. But before the grisly end, I liked watching the fish swimming in their tank; it was calming to the eyes. So one day when I was "looking after" my nieces I took them out with me to buy my own tank and they helped me to set it up (the girls got home safely). This was well before the death by neglect that only recently occurred at their place, and they seemed like good role models to me at the time. I originally bought three goldfish, which the youngest of the three nieces promptly named 'Goldy', 'Stripy' and 'Spot'. I wasn't overly keen on these names, being reflective of a somewhat younger mindset, and also because of my penchant for looking for literature references in threes: Athos, Porthos and Aramis had leapt to mind, as had Harry, Ron and Hermione, and also Desdemona, Iago and Othello, but that particular naming option seemed somewhat doomed. It would not have mattered. The names Goldy, Stripy and Spot stuck, and all three fish died within ten days. I decided to start smaller, being a rookie fish tamer, and chose a large sturdy looking goldfish to carry on the 'Goldy' name. Having a fish tank was not only calming to the eyes; it was by extension calming to the mind, seeing him swim about in there. Watching him swim slowed down my breathing and relaxed me, and this combined with cool clear water really does soothe the senses. I really liked having him around.

Then he stopped swimming. He was just floating, not at the top, but not going anywhere. Was he asleep? Daydreaming? Who knows what fish think. Not much, I hear you say. But I tweaked the pH, added water conditioner, added small amounts of food, topped up the algae killers, and checked the filter. Nothing.

The following morning, he was swimming about again. Maybe he was just tired. Maybe he had chronic fatigue. Perhaps he'd just eaten too much, like on Christmas day when you literally can't move. Then he did it another time, and another time. He became known as Lazarus to us, because no matter how badly we treat him, he just keeps coming back. We think. Just tap lightly on the tank and check.

Lazarus is not one of the pairs of eyes following me about the house. He is more a living allegory of my life of late. He has periods of being down, then periods of being up. I don't wish to bind my fate to his in any totally mental or misguided way, given he could start floating at the top for good any day. But as long as he's still flitting about in there I feel good, and calm, and relaxed. And it is reassuring that I know some people who are experienced in performing goldfish burials if I need them.

Onto my spies. My diligent, vigilant sentinels, aware of every move or event taking place. Freaky.

I know a lot of people don't like cats. Some tolerate them (like my husband), and some are allergic which makes things less fun. Also, there are cat people and there are CRAZY cat people. You know who I'm talking about - the ones the cat food commercials are pitched at, whose cats wear tiaras and sit on velvet pillows, or have ridiculous names like Anastasia or Sebastian or whatever. (Hope I haven't offended anyone using those names for either pets or children, oops). I am none of the above. I am just a person who gets what cats are on about.

There's a common saying, that dogs have masters, cats have staff. Cats certainly won't conform to what you think they should be. If they do something when you tell them to, it's because they felt like it at the time, not because you asked. They won't necessarily cuddle you when you ask them to. They won't eat all their dinner at the allotted time if it doesn't suit them. They want to go out when you want them to stay in, and vice versa. If you can't find them for hours they will have changed their position according to maximum sunshine available in a place suitable for sleeping, i.e. bed, sofa, cushion, pillow (on top or underneath), clothes left on floor, fluffy towels, white quilts that show up black fur, black quilts that show up white fur, your precious new wool jumper, and so on. All in the space of a day. Cats are independent, they make up their own minds, and I love and respect that about them. They are contrary, bossy, uncooperative, dismissive, haughty and proud. So when you strike it lucky and find a gorgeous relationship with one who likes you, boy do you feel special.

One thing you often find with people who have animals is that they say the animal chose them, not the other way around. I know what they mean. I went looking for a kitten at an animal shelter after my previous cat, the noble and shy Errol, had died, leaving me bereft. Errol was a black cat, and I didn't want to heartlessly replace him with a lookalike, who could not possibly live up to what Errol had meant to me. When I walked into this animal shelter, in the room where the kittens were kept, this scruffy, motley charcoal grey kitten climbed up the inside wire of the pen he was being kept in (just like Spiderman) and got right up to eye level and checked me out. If I moved around the pen to see the other kittens, he followed me, climbing round his ten storey building, keeping direct eye contact all the time. And this is probably where I surrendered the control (or ‘hand’, as George Costanza might put it) in our relationship. I got him out of the pen for a closer look.

He promptly climbed on top of my head. If that doesn't speak volumes about his personality I don't know what does. It also inspired his name. Have you been to Trafalgar Square in London and seen Nelson's Column? I was Nelson's column on the day we met.

I left the room to think things over, as I wouldn't be able to take him home straight away due to him not being weaned. When I walked back in to the room, full of many other people seeking kittens to love and care for, he immediately made laser beam eye contact with me and moved through the pen to get to me. It was bizarre. He chose me, and we were done. And as he grew up, he turned into a black cat. That's cats for you.

For awhile, I thought that Nelson understood the pecking order in our house was; me, Nelson, my husband, then my dog Molly. Me as boss, because as the chief animal wrangler Nelson does more when I ask him than when my husband does. Recently I realised I was totally wrong, and noticed all the ways Nelson has trained me to do what he wants. He has used his bad behaviour to make both our lives easier, it's almost like win-win but I'm afraid he is the one in control of this situation. He has more 'hand ' in this relationship. An example: when he wants to come inside, he gets his claws into the wire door. I have already replaced the wire in the door once, and it is holding up well this time around, but I'd really rather not have him doing Spiderman impressions all the way up if I can help it. He knows this, and knows I'll get up and open the door rather than continue being held to ransom by flipping wire mesh. Another example: I will not allow him to be up on the kitchen bench, but if his food is there out of the way of my always-hungry golden lab, then Nelson will climb his way up onto the bench until he gets his way. I am under the thumb. So it's true: the pecking order in our house is Nelson, me, Nick then Molly. Lazarus gets no vote as he only has fins. Life's tough out here in the big pond where a cat is in charge.

The eldest of our animids (animal kids, I just made up the term) is the aforementioned always-up-for-food golden lab and apple of our eye, Molly. Everybody loves Molly. My family, Nick's family, friends, nieces, nephews, kids in the park, dogs in the park, people in the park, babies in prams, mums at the shops, everyone. But she is by no means perfect, in fact she was a handful from puppyhood and we are only now seeing the benefits of hard work and training now that she is six. She has wrecked three garden watering systems, countless plants, throw rugs, doona covers, sheets, buckets, pots, shoes, roughly ten dog beds, and a timber outdoor setting - seriously. She has jumped up on people with her muddy paws, knocked over small children, upset small dogs and taken a dump in the ocean (more than once). She is a regular Molly and Me.

Molly wears her heart on her sleeve, which doesn't quite work as we're not into animal clothing. She wears her heart in her eyes, her ears, her nose, her tail, in fact, all over. She does amazing aerial jumps when someone she knows is arriving, and can wag her whole body, not just her tail. Molly makes noises from ridiculously high pitched squeaks and yips when she loves you, to intimidating growls and a particular tone of bark when she doesn't know you or like the look of you (happens to couriers, tradies and door to door salespeople generally).

Both Molly and Nelson seem to have taken it upon themselves to keep an eye on me over the past nine months. It started with my being bedridden with Meniere's. When Molly didn't see me out of bed in the morning, she'd come round to my window to check where I was. She continues to do so: she did it just last week on one of my blah days, when I thought I'd take my time getting out of bed. She was round to my window several times, and barked her head off at everything in the street, in the air and in the vicinity generally, as if to say “back off and leave us alone today!!”. She drove me nuts but I could see why she was doing it, it's part of her job now. Her job also includes nasally checking me over from top to toe after every chemo and every outing, whether it is for eight hours or a five minute walk up the street (which she monitors from the deck where she gets an excellent view. To explain, I can’t take her with me as even the sight of the lead makes her crazily excited and she’s too strong for me). Dogs have a totally different olfactory sense to us: the nearest analogy is that smell is to them what sight is to us, but in truth we have no concept of what their sense of smell is like. I know Molly can smell the chemicals that are pumped into me fortnightly, and she watches me intently during those times. Her body language changes to a gentler, more careful state, her ears go down and she quietly follows me around the house. If I'm out of sight, she finds a window or a door and checks where I am or what I'm doing. She does the day shift, and then spends the night under the bed.

Nelson takes over for the night shift. He has minimal responsibilities during the day: if I've been out, he turns up to greet the car delivering me home, but his real duties start at about 8pm. He starts rounding me up for bed, or taking himself off to the foot of my bed to wait for me. Once I'm in bed, I get big time cuddles, nose to nose, front-paws-around-my-neck kind of attention. VERY loud purring happens here, and sometimes I think it's coming from me. Once the light is off, Nelson pins me down, as if to limit my ability to ever get out of bed. If I wake in the night, he wakes too, and pins me down until I can sleep again. In the morning he's off outside, and Molly is back on duty.

There have been tough days, especially during my bedridden Meniere's stage, when I was struggling to walk. One of my exercises was to walk up and down our corridor, slowly, with my stick, trying to keep my head up. Molly and Nelson walked it with me - they followed me up and down. When I got better at it, Nelson found better things to do but Molly stood halfway and watched me go back and forth, like a tennis match. They have been there through the ups and the downs, shown their worry and awareness, and responded in amazing ways. I am always being watched.

I am never alone. It’s wonderful.