Terrible (Warning: Graphic)

I was prepared for the flu.

I was ready to be achy, uncomfortable, tired. I was ready for nausea, headaches, upset tummy.

I wasn’t ready for this. I wasn’t ready for the constant – CONSTANT – indigestion, churning, and cramping. I wasn’t ready to spend literally half of my day for three days straight on the toilet. I wasn’t ready to feel like my rectum was literally on fire, nonstop, as though some demon is slow roasting it with a blow torch, even when I’m not actively going to the bathroom. I wasn’t ready to be kept awake by pain and discomfort, unable to find a comfortable position, praying for sleep. I wasn’t ready to feel totally hopeless and powerless, not knowing when this will end. I wasn’t ready to listen to my kids laugh with their relatives and cry for their mother while I lie prone in bed, unable to join in or help them because I can’t even help myself. I wasn’t ready for Christmas to be ruined because not only am I sick but I am SO sick that I can’t even be around people, or be anywhere more than ten feet from a fucking toilet. 

And here’s the thing. Here’s the thing that makes me angry. We don’t even know. They cut out the cancer. I don’t have a formidable fucking enemy. I am not fighting something I can see. I am fighting “what if.” I am fighting in the name of Just In Case. I am suffering for “maybe.” And I don’t know now. I don’t know if I can do this. As I type this literally sitting in a sitz bath on the toilet, I am not sure how I am going to face this again in another 2 weeks. I have put on a brave face and I have gone in with guns blazing and I have quite literally been gutted. And has it done any good? Has it done anything at all? Other than, of course, put my family out, make my kids miserable, ruin the holiday season, and make me wish I were dead? 

Who knows. Who knows if it’s done any good at all.