These days my emotional state is so tied to my (very volatile) physical state, it can feel a little like a mood disorder. I was doing fine yesterday, tons of energy, optimistic as can be, when at suppertime I coughed and – POP! – the rib pain came searing back into my body and knocked me on my kiester. Ah, pain. You exhausting and depressing thing. As if the reality of my illness and the difficulty I have breathing weren’t terrifying enough. As if I didn’t have enough going on with the coughing and headaches and auras and general weakness. No, we need to round it out with a little excruciating pain. Come on. So I took one of the heavy painkillers I like to call Big Daddys last night so that I could sleep. I’m afraid of the Big Daddys because I know they’re highly addictive, and frankly I don’t need to add Pill Junkie to my current list of problems. And I also don’t want to be feeling so painless and groovy that I’m not able to connect to the people and world around me. So, until now, Big Daddy and I haven’t made each other’s acquaintance. But the fact is I need sleep, and I need strength, and pain makes me frightened and depressed. So I called in Big Daddy. At bedtime, I popped one. And boy did it work! Blissful floaty pain-free sleep… for exactly 4 hours, at which point a coughing fit overtook me and I ended up in tears, sitting at the edge of the bed wheezing and shaking in the dark, while my husband rubbed my back and I tried to calm down enough to take another Big Daddy. And? Sweet sleep again… for a meagre 4 hours, when the coughing trauma was repeated, complete with tears and back-rub. And then, in the morning (this is the kicker) a hangover!! No, really, a bonafide fuzzy-headed hangover! Without the party! Like that’s fair. Obviously this whole pill-popping thing needs some fine-tuning. And Big Daddy may have the strength, but his stamina needs work. Meanwhile, Dr. Detroit called with what should be amazingly fabulous news: it is possible that my spot in the study will open early and I could begin in a couple of weeks! But before we go popping the champagne (or the Big Daddys) there is a catch. I felt renewed and improved following the vinorelbine last week, but 8 days later the symptoms have come crashing back – the coughing is worse, the pain has returned, the aura that shrank and shrank and shrank has begun to unshrink – and I am afraid that if I have to go 2 weeks without any treatment I will be back at the Brink. And nobody, least of all me, wants me going back to the Brink. The idea of course is that the study would carry me far, far away from the Brink forever and happily ever after. But if I can’t make it to the study start day, there’s a flaw in the fairy tale. Even if I make it, I could be deemed too weak and thus rejected. I have no idea how bad things might get in two weeks, but if last night was scary, what shape will I be in 14 days from now? Or 21 days?? So, I want another vinorelbine treatment tomorrow. Even if it means waiting 3 weeks rather than 2 to begin the study. I reason that I went about 7 weeks without treatment and it did a lot of damage, so I need at least a couple of weeks of consecutive treatment to restore some strength before I do another chemo-fast in preparation for the clinical trial. But I actually have no idea if this is medically sound reasoning, so I’ve put it to Dr. Detroit via e-mail, and await her reply. And, finally, as if that’s not enough drama for one post: my oncologist’s secretary called in some kind of massive favour and managed to get my brain MRI scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Well, at least it’s never dull around here.