The following night the lift doors
opened to Keanu’s apartment and I shuffled inside. I was thin and pale. My hair
was grey and matted, my back was curved and my head was bowed. When I arrived
the chatter stopped and everyone raised their heads towards me. They could see
I was dying. They looked horrified. They weren’t seeing me they were seeing
what I had become. Like Katie I couldn’t hide my affliction. I was dying on the
inside and the outside. The guests stood mute. Keanu never appeared. I turned
around slowly and limped back on to the lift. When the door closed I slumped to
the floor.
I
thought the evening before my first doctor’s visit on January 16th
would be the worst night for nerves but it was my calmest. When I lay down to
sleep I was so tranquil that I held my head up high and marched into Keanu’s
party as a healthy woman. I was rosy-cheeked and elegant. My last appearance,
as a near-corpse was erased from the minds of the guests. I nodded and smiled,
had a glass of wine and spotted Keanu across the room. As I walked towards him
the image had resounding echoes of the last scene in Titanic. It was the moment
when Kate Winslet saw Jack again. Jack
looked glowing and healthy, only he was dead. I figured my subconscious must
have accepted my death. That’s why I was so calm. It was now okay to die. It
gave me peace and allowed me to sleep.
But
the next morning my conscious-self wanted to live. I nervously shook until the
appointment and hung on to every word the doctor had to say. But in spite of
the glimmer of good news he gave me that day in January, that my body had
responded well to the chemo, I was also reminded of what an awful disease I had
and how close I was to dying. Hearing about the drug treatment, stem cell
transplant and risks I would have to overcome intensified my fear and I ramped
up my night time cocktail. I drank wine and whisky. I took a sleeping pill
every night and two on steroid nights. I didn’t need to access my happy Keanu
place anymore or strive for the sensation of stretching out on to five seats on
the airplane. Rolling blissfully into sleep was all gone. I was chemically
inducing slumber in a mechanical and orderly fashion. A week after the first doctor’s visit a diary entry
rationalized my drug use:
It
is a hard habit to break. But it doesn’t seem to interfere with my other
medication. It is so reliable and I get a good night’s sleep and feel
refreshed, so why would I punish myself and not take it?
My
second doctor’s visit on February 16th was a positive meeting, full
of hope. It was just what I needed. The cancer was being fought back with the
drugs. It was going better than expected. I had passed the first marker. The
first timeline of death I had uncovered on the internet back in December was
2-8 months. February 16th was exactly two months since my diagnosis.
Dr Comfort said my response to the drugs was really good. It allowed me to
become hopeful and I invited Keanu back into my life. That night as soon as my
head hit the pillow I was in his apartment. There were lots of people in the
main room tonight. They were smiling at me. I was wearing a light blue cocktail
dress with silver leaves at the shoulders and three-inch high heels. I had
make-up on and my curly hair was shiny and perfect. The waiter brought the tray
directly to me and offered me a glass of champagne. I looked over at the
bartender and he smiled. Keanu was nowhere in sight but tonight it didn’t
matter. I was so confident I didn’t need a hug. I didn’t even bother going out
to the balcony. This room was full of laughter and love and I was enveloped in
it.
Feeling
more confident about my treatment and my good results, I took stock again of my
zopiclone intake. To see if it could really be doing me any harm, I researched
the process by which the pill worked. It was scary stuff. The drug caused a
depression of the central nervous system. Side effects were listed as confusion,
dizziness, memory loss and depression. There could also be withdrawal symptoms
of seizures and psychosis. It was not advised to take zopiclone for more than a
couple of weeks. I had taken it every night for sixty days.
One woman
said zopiclone made her hallucinate. While in bed one night, a poster of a man
that was hanging on her wall waved to her, and disembodied voices on the stairs
shouted her name. Her bedroom curtains looked like they were turning in
circles. Another patient thought that lots of little brightly coloured flowers
were floating around the room. Generally people complained about heavy limbs and
a metallic taste. But there were also numerous case histories
of addiction. A 65-year old woman was taking 250mg a night of zopiclone. She
couldn’t stop the habit even though it turned her into a “zombie” during
daylight hours. Other addicts talked of their pills fondly, nicknaming them
“zoppys”. My pills were only 7.5mg and so far I hadn’t hallucinated or turned
into a zombie but it was time to get out of the habit.
On
February 20th I went cold turkey. I went to sleep quickly but woke a couple of
times during the night. The next morning I woke at about 7am which meant I had
eight hours sleep, give or take. I was proud of myself. I knew I could do it
again. Bu I was still bothered by the steroids. I decided to go four nights a
week without sleeping pills and three nights with the aid of the “zoppy’s”. It
was a good compromise.
By May 1st I
wasn’t taking any sleeping pills. I was off the steroids in preparation for my
stem cell transplant so I didn’t need them anymore. I had
completely lost the ability to go to Keanu’s apartment. My diary entry read:
I
lay in bed thinking about reaching out to Keanu but he was so far away now. It
was like stretching my arms into a black hole. He was suddenly out of reach.
Was it because I was not as worried and I didn’t need him now? I don’t know.
But I thank him for being there for me.
Five months after inviting Keanu into my head I never
dreamt about him or his party again. He will always be part of me now for
getting me through the darkest days and perhaps I will find him again when this
disease takes its final turn. But for now I would let him go. I also let my
family of four take their final flight and final jump out of the airplane. I
never saw them again.
In June,
as the stem cell collection and transplant got closer, my nervousness was
building again. But after doing so well, I didn’t want to increase the
zopiclone. I had to invent another way to relax. When I shut my eyes, instead
of conjuring up Keanu, my brain devised a new dream. I was in the ocean. In the
near distance I could see the ship I had been a passenger on, sinking into the
briny. After swimming in the choppy waves for a while I became absolutely
exhausted. I spotted a big piece of wood from the break-up of the ship and
climbed on. The sun was strong and all I could do was float and sleep. This
seemed the perfect relaxation scenario but then my stupid rational mind kicked
in. What about sunburn and drinking water?
I woke
with a start. But I liked the idea enough to work with it. The next night I developed
the scene further. I was laying on the piece of wood but I imagined there were
bags of things floating past me. It was debris from the ship. One bag that
floated right next to me happened to contain water and a bottle of sunscreen. I
grabbed the bag and pulled it on to the wood. I drank some water and slathered
the sun screen on. Protected from burn and thirst, I tried to sleep again but
there was one more thing plaguing my mind. I was disturbed at how easy the
sharks could get to me on the piece of wood. I was a sitting duck. So next I
invented a life boat. It had come off the ship, was in an upright position,
empty of water, and just happened to float toward me. It was solid, large, deep
and of course shark proof. Somehow I managed to clamber on board. Now I was
lying in the sun, covered in sunscreen, in a sturdy boat, with a bottle of
water, floating gently on the ocean. I was exhausted and there was nothing to
do but sleep. It worked. But I kind of missed Keanu.
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