I Have a Bad Feeling About This
A big understatement when you face death
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I have a bad feeling about this.
The iconic line from Star Wars pretty much sums up 2020 and 2021 for us. I know, 2021 is not over yet, but my body trying to kill me repeatedly makes me kind of hate the season of dying I’m in.
When they say that your life flashes before your eyes when you die, I can unequivocally say that is true. I have faced death, but not by choice. Well, I take it back…Is it your choice to choose death if you are purposely pumping poison into your body to kill the cancer cells that are destroying you? For example, knowing that chemotherapy will kill cancer, but it could also kill you in the process?
Death has a way of both slowing down and speeding up. In a state of active dying, I saw clips of my life flash before me. Most clearly, I saw my children and my husband. I saw parts of our lives, the memories we’ve made. I saw the joy, and I saw the hardships. I saw every freaking argument I had with my teenager struggling with my cancer diagnosis in less than a minute. But, I also wondered who would tell my husband that I died in the chemo chair without friends or family nearby? Who would tell him that my last thoughts were of him and our children? Who would say to them that I love them with every single beat of my heart? Who would tell them that I choose each one of them every single time?
As I saw each of those clips, I also felt the urgency from the nurses to revive me as I was slipping into unconsciousness. I remember saying, “I don’t feel good. I really don’t feel good,” as I started to slump. Too bad I wasn’t in the state of mind to quote Han Solo and give a nod to my family’s favorite fandom and say, “I have a bad feeling about this.” I can sort of joke about it now, but my husband isn’t there yet.
Thanks to the pandemic, my husband spent my chemo treatments waiting for me in the parking lot. He was completely unaware that I was passing out and struggled to breathe as my face reddened and my body tried to void the poison by trying to get me to vomit. Dying is a shitty way to find out that you are highly allergic to the chemotherapy supposed to save your life from cancer.
