A little setup is needed. There are many health issues occurring to people I know. My brother is trying to get more healthy and dealing with his weight. My older brother had a major surgery recently that was unexpected and has many small health issues like a bruise that won't go away or bowels that seem to operate on their own demanding time schedule. My mother... well you've read enough to know about many of her health issues, but in addition to those chronic issues she recently had an infected cyst on her back and had to have it surgically removed. A close friend of mine is dealing with testosterone problems and now must give himself weekly injections. Another close friend of mine has had major knee surgery recently (on both knees!). Three co-workers in the past 3 years have had to retire due to major health problems. Another coworker has recently been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Another coworker has been diagnosed with lung cancer similar to my father's. Many coworkers have to take multiple medications daily for their own chronic problems. And then there's me... the migraines are getting worse and I'm starting a new medication for them with little hope that it will work. I also have my shoulder problem that was made worse by physical therapy and now has me waiting months for a surgical consult. And with these two problems no imaging has been done. No X-ray of my shoulder, no CT or MRI scan of my head.
Put all those things together and naturally health will be on my mind. Consider that I'm a registered nurse and deal with my patient's health care crisis all the time as well and it makes it even more likely that health concerns will be on my mind. I've dreamed of health scenarios involving work, friends, family, and even myself before with many of these dreams being bad. But this was different. This was a nightmare.
I had stayed up fairly late last night. The med I'm taking for the migraines interferes a bit with my sleep schedule so that isn't in itself out of the ordinary. I finally laid head to pillow at 2:30 am. I was very tired and fell asleep quickly. I didn't wake up during the night and only woke up from this nightmare at 6:45 am.
The nightmare itself, like most dreams, was short. I was in some kind of imaging device. I know what most imaging devices look like and this wasn't any of those, but it wasn't something out of the ordinary in the dream. I just accepted it as the way to get the imaging that was needed. Of my head. Of my brain. I was laying back not quite in the prone position with the scanning head pointed right at my face. The tech took an image, looked at it for a moment, then told me to stay still while she put a thin probe between me and the scanning head and took another image.
The scanning head was pulled away and I was allowed to sit up enough to look at a computer screen where there was an image of my brain. It was clear we were looking through my eye socket. The first image showed just a bunch of stuff that all looked right. The second image had the probe in it and it was pointing at a dark smudge. She told me the name of the foreign object inside my brain, but it wasn't a medical term I recognized. It sounded like a cancer, but it wasn't any that I'd heard before. She then told me that the recommended treatment was 12 sessions over 12 weeks and that we could work out the scheduling.
Here in the real world I know that this is no where near how a scan of any type would work. The tech running the scan wouldn't even show you the images if they had access to them and the doctor that ordered the test would be unlikely to be standing by and ready to give a diagnosis let alone a treatment course. But in the dream I didn't have that realization and it felt very real. I had just been diagnosed with something and been given a treatment, and everybody was moving on as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
I stepped out of the machine, and talked to another tech and asked if I had just been diagnosed with cancer. She looked at me sympathetically but didn't answer. I then asked if I had been prescribed chemotherapy or radiation, and she continued to look at me with sympathy but no answers. She finally answered in a small voice, as if it were something she wasn't supposed to say, that if it were her she'd want to find out before agreeing to treatment.
The rest of the dream is broken up. I looked for help or an answer but couldn't find either and I started to plan for a cancer diagnosis like my father had. You see, when he was diagnosed with small cell carcinoma of the lung, it had already spread. It was impacting his heart and was so far progressed that surgery wasn't an option at all. His options were no treatment, which would likely lead to his death in a few months or aggressive chemotherapy which would extend his life to about six months. He chose the latter, but only after my mother and brothers pleaded with him for it. My older brother hoped there would be another newer treatment that could save his life, while my younger brother and mother just wanted as many days with him as possible. I didn't have an opinion other than making sure he was educated on what the options meant and he could make his own decision.
It was hard watching him go through the treatment, especially knowing that even the doctors didn't expect this to cure him. It didn't take long for Dad to lose the ability to breathe easy. Soon enough he couldn't even walk to the mailbox, let alone do any chores or work around the house. He never complained about making the choice he did and even joked that he'd prove the doctors wrong and beat this cancer. He was correct in a way... he lasted 7 months.
It was probably grief at the time, but I vowed that I wouldn't fight a diagnosis like that ever. That if I were given that option, I'd go right into hospice care and live out whatever life I had left, but wouldn't extend my life through chemo or radiation both of which are terrible on the body and can make those extra months or even years feel like torture. If there's a good chance of beating it or at least sending it into a multi year remission, then yeah I'll do it. But otherwise, let me die.
And that's where that nightmare left me when I woke up. I was planning on dying. I was very upset upon waking and tried to go back to sleep, but that just made it worse. I ended up sleeping on my back for about 30 more minutes but that made me wake up coughing (Dad had cancer in his lungs and it started with coughing), and a headache (It's in my brain, it's causing my migraines and even headaches). It's now 3 and a half hours later and I'm still out of sorts about the whole thing. I keep thinking about that nightmare scenario and wondering how I'd deal with it. How would I say goodbye to my family? How would I say goodbye to my friends? How long could I continue to work? How could I continue to pay my bills and not be a burden upon my family? How could I make sure all my debt is paid off or at least laid to rest with me?
I think this will ruin the day for me. I'm not going to have a good day because this will constantly be going around in the back of my head. I'm going to try and post something else after this... a list of things I like. Hopefully that will get my spirits up... but I'm doubting I'll even be able to write it, let alone get any joy out of it.
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