Not every day in the Addiverse is filled with fun and games…

My client is dying. Again.

She was supposed to have died three years ago, but she was too stubborn to die back then. Talk about a cat with nine lives.

For purposes of this blog, I’ll call her Harvey. She’d know why. That would make her laugh.

Anyway, Harvey has breast cancer—the kind that has metasticized all over the place. Three years ago, she was having a hysterectomy….when the opened her up…all they saw was cancer. They sewed her back up and called it a day.

Harvey, the one boob wonder, was full of cancer. That pissed her off. She didn’t want chemo again—this would be round three—and she didn’t want to lose her hair—this would be round three of that, too. Harvey didn’t want any more pills or doctors or surgery or mammograms…but, she finally agreed to try round three of chemotherapy, mostly to shut all of us up.

So, the hair fell out, the hair grew back and the cancer seemed to shrink back to a size that left her alive.

It’s a cruel world that first deals you paranoid schizophrenia and then deals you breast cancer. It’s an even crueler world that lets your mental illness ease up as your medical condition falls apart. You might think that any decrease in the severity of mental illness would be a blessing. Sometimes it is not--Harvey had insight she probably wished had never come….

For some reason, through the muck of paranoia & delusions, Harvey has trusted me. She let me take her to chemo and to doctor appointments, she let me watch as the doctor examined her one remaining boob, she let me talk her in to blood work when she didn’t want blood work. In return, I’ve been through many a drive-through with her. Who am I to deny a cancer-ridden client of a Frosty or a large order of fries?

Harvey is stubborn beyond compare. She never complains about pain, lies through her teeth about how she is feeling, refuses to take pain pills and basically denies anything is amiss, even on the worst of days. It’s the stubbornness that has kept her alive, I’m sure. But even terminal stubbornness cannot stop terminal cancer.

So, I watch Harvey waste away, legs refusing to work as they once did, eye floating around in her head, weight leaving, appetite dwindling, color fading. And yet, she plugs along, saying, “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

She is not fine but I smile anyway.

Last week, Harvey complained of pain. This is very unusual for her and thus we sat up, taking notice. She started taking pain pills—something I had never seen her do in the seven years I have known her. She stopped eating pizza at 3 AM. She has all the signs of a bowel obstruction and that is not a good thing. At this exact moment, she sits in an emergency room, waiting for someone to tell her she can leave and go outside and have a cigarette. I will return there in an hour or two to sit with her and to tell the doctor that she is not “fine, I’m fine.” I will sit with her because no one who is dying should ever have to sit alone in an emergency room.

Harvey may pull through again. Maybe she’s a cat with ten lives. On this day, it does not look hopeful. The Addiverse is a place of hope…but, also full or reality. The reality is that she is on borrowed time.

My client is dying. Again.

And that is not a happy thing.