I'm so tired...

I'm tired on two levels.

Physically, I zombie-walked through today. After waking up at 9:30 with a splitting hangover, I downed a glass of water and tried to sleep. But it was one of those ill-hangovers that, in addition to making you feel like shit, give you this nervous twitch that keeps you from peacefully falling to sleep. To combat this, and give myself something to think about while I lay there, I popped on some Frasier and pulled the covers over my head.

I managed to fall asleep around noon, and found myself in a bizarre dream. The world was very dark, something you would see in a '30s film noir. I remember looking out the window at a city that looked entirely art deco (which I love) but ultimately very cold and detached. At some point I was in a class, where the guest prof wanted to lecture in French, to which we agreed. Bizarre.

My phone, conveniently placed on the bedside table, went off ringing loudly in my ear, thrusting me from my dreamspace. It wasn't important, but it took me out of my deep sleep.

The rest of the day was spent puttering quietly. Nothing too strenuous. I wound up taking Lisa some chicken soup, as she's fallen ill. We sat around for two hours reading newspapers and trying to generate essay topics. Neither of us were successful.

Once I was back home, I returned a call to my mom, who needed me to look something up online for her. While I was doing that, she got very quiet.

"So I got some results today," she said, of the recent follow-up tests she had.

Basically, from what I understood, her results were very ambiguous. There's a growth, but it could be a polyp. Most likely it is, as the medication she's on as part of her post-cancer treatment is prone to growing such polyps. It's one of those situations that are becoming ever-familiar. The constant check ups and wondering what's going to turn up, the inevitable questionable results...the waiting.

I waited for a few seconds before the silence was broken.

"Well, what are you thinking," she said.

"Really, I just...it all never seems to end."

"Yeah, that's for sure," she said sadly. "But what do you think."

"I really just don't know what to say," I answered. "I mean...I don't know enough about your results, I can't give an opinion. I guess we just wait for the next test and see whats what."

She sounded a little surprised. "Oh..." she said quietly.

"What do you want me to say?" I said, "I don't know enough about it, and it's just what we always do. Don't worry too much, I mean there's reasonable chance this is nothing. It's just really a lot...we seem to do this a lot."

I honestly don't know how to do this any more. It used to be I had to be the scientific one, and play the line between being worried and engaged while at the same time stepping back and looking at all the science involved. She told me afterwards there were moments she felt I wasn't concerned enough or that I wasn't taking the big picture into account.

So with that in mind, I had to really be careful, and will have to, to be as compassionate as possible. Because, of course I'm worried to death about this type of thing, but I can't let it become my focus.

It all started when I was 17, the tests and waiting for results, then the further tests and all the appointments and worrying and wondering if this time, really, there will be something wrong again. And it's been this way for four years now. And it'll be this way for many more.

And I'm starting not to be able to cope with that. Of all the test drama, tonight's news just seemed to set something off in me; it revealed how tired I am of this. How I wish it would just not be this way.

But of course, it has to be. Because if I had nothing more to worry about she would have to be dead. And really, the worrying is a small price to pay for not being dead.

In all of this I'm sure she's tired too. It frustrates and bothers me, and it's not even my body. But we experience things pretty much together, so I hope she doesn't think I'm undermining her own distress when I say how it never seems to end.

Someone asked me how it had changed my life, having a mother with cancer at a young age. I didn't really have an answer; I don't know how things would have been different had this not happened. But I guess what I'm discovering is the times when the specter hovers in the peripheral vision and the lifelong commitment to concern and worry is brought to my attention again.

I'll sleep tonight, probably not well. I'll catch up on the sleep I missed because of Halloween and drinking too much. I can't seem to take away the other weariness, no matter how much sleep I get.

And I probably never will.