Suffocation

Suffocation. When I think about ways to die, suffocation is close to the top, maybe just under burning to death. I asked my primary care doctor how I was going to die. Without hesitation he said 'suffocation'. While I was banging my head against his desk, he said "But don't worry, we'll keep you comfortable." You know how many times I've been told "we'll keep you comfortable"? By everyone, oncologists, infusion nurses, primary care doctors.....well, that's not everyone, that's like three groups of people that are very closely related, professionally. It isn't like the checker at Safeway tells me "we'll keep you comfortable", because I use the self checkout like a normal person.

Still, I've been told that I will be kept comfortable many, many times. So many times that it has lost meaning. The person telling me this usually doesn't follow up with any details, they just let it float out there, like a fucking smoke ring. Even when I asked hospice straight out what that meant, they couldn't give me a clear answer. It isn't anyone's fault, it's just that there are a number of different ways of achieving 'comfort' depending on the situation. Most involving opiates of some kind; hospice keeps telling me I won't be in any pain. Suffocation is a kind of pain, I guess. The only pain I've experienced from cancer was caused by the treatment. Lung Cancer doesn't hurt. I'm pretty fucking grateful for that. I've read that there are many types of cancer that cause a lot of pain. I seriously feel lucky. But if I am not experiencing pain, just not being able to breathe, how are they going to remedy that? Only thing I can think of is sedation so I can't tell I'm not breathing. But I will still be conscious until someone, presumably me, makes the decision to put me under. The I won't wake up. How is that keeping me comfortable? 'Comfortable' implies consciousness, if you are not conscious, you are not comfortable/uncomfortable/hungry/thirsty, etc, you don't have the ability to recognize these feelings. How fucked will me breathing be before that happens. They mentioned the use of oxygen, but, man, it seems like that won't really be doing the trick. How fast will my ability to breath go downhill? Sucks is, no one knows. I have to wait and find out. I'm not happy with that answer, I want to talk to someone in charge. I'll cut my hair into an asymmetric wedge and change my name to Karen, then I'll get answers goddammit. One of my buddies in San Diego had an asymmetric wedge, like a forelock dividing his face, corner to corner.

The grief counsellor, who I found out wasn't being paid, had commitments in places that are not here, and are not commuting distances to here. I don't talk to my family about any of this because, fuck, after 3 years of this shit, it's gotten kind of old. Every time I get paralyzed with fear I just wait it out. As long as I can keep myself distracted, I can handle it. Want to see a real use of irony? It is ironic that by discussing facts about my death, I lose some of the fear of death. But that's all wrong, it's not irony, it's just distraction, because I don't lose my fear of death, I just don't think about it for a second. So, never mind.

I feel like I missed something crucial during my life. Just by a second, like, blinking at the wrong time and missing something I was supposed to see. I know that's all bullshit, predetermination is not a thing. Life is coincidence, and randomness. My mom watches NCIS, it's a tv show on Netflix. On the show, dude has these set in stone rules. One is "There's no such thing as coincidence". That's the stupidest shit I've ever heard. Everything is coincidence. When they use cancer as a plot driver they get it wrong every time. All shows get cancer wrong, maybe not all of their shit is wrong, but each time there is something that is glaringly wrong. I probably pay too much attention and put too much thought into this shit sometimes.

What happens when fear gets too great? Does our brain decide enough is enough and shut down? or does it break? If you fell out of an airplane, from like 5 miles up, and you had oxygen but no parachute; would your brain shut down before you hit the ground, or would it keep up awake and aware until you hit. I feel like I'm going to find out. I know when anxiety gets too great, I fall asleep. When I was getting my lung biopsy I was stressed like a motherfucker, and I kept starting to fall asleep, but I was afraid if I fell asleep, I might and jerk. Pretty sure that would not be good during a lung biopsy. When dude was wheeling me out he asked me if I was into meditation. Said 'no, why?', he said that he hadn't given me part of the pain med because I was so calm. He thought I was meditating, I was just trying to stay awake cuz I was fucking scared. Same thing would happen when I was having my teeth pulled for implants. I would be so stressed that I would fight to stay awake. So maybe that's what will happen. When I get to a point that fear takes over, I will just go to sleep. That's not terrible. That's not burning to death in a car accident.

There's a short story by Stephen King called 'The Jaunt'. Read it if you like shit by Stephen King, if you don't like King, you probably won't like it, who knows, give it a shot, it's a really short story, and then you will know what I am talking about when I say, it would really suck to be that kid. I hope my brain shuts down at an appropriate time. And stays shut down.

Trippy thing is, I have access to just about everything written about everything. But the only answers I can get are opinions. One reason I am pretty sure there is no afterlife; someone would have monetized it by now. If there were afterlife and the people alive could interact with the non alive people in any way, shit would be monetized. I've promised someone that I will do everything I can to get through, if given the chance. But I'm not really counting on it. Love doesn't survive death. At least, not from the dead persons point of view.

From a lighter side, Kurt Cobain just wanted to be these guys:

Frank Black is a crazy motherfucker. Knowing what you know about Frank Black and the Pixies, it's got to drive Frank batso fucking nuts that the Pixies biggest hit, monetarily and critically, is 'Gigantic'. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, it doesn't really matter. Since Pixies aren't exactly punk rock, maybe punk rock adjacent, I don't get to have a say in the situation. I only handle punk rock gate keeping. So, ya, I get stoned and ramble on about bullshit, but, at least I ramble into the void, not really loud at Safeway. BTW, the answer was Kim Deal. If you can follow that logic, well, that would be cool. Think if you were to slowly go insane, you would realize it? Nobody would say anything because it would be gradual, and fuck, what? you're going to tell the dude who is dying of cancer that he also might be going insane? Sometimes I think I misused the ability to inflict guilt that comes with being a cancer patient. I should have used it like a motherfucker. I bet if I walked up to enough women and said "I have cancer and am going to die. Wanna fuck?", I would eventually get a yes. And if they said no, they wouldn't hit me or anything, cuz of the cancer. I only get good ideas when it's too late in the game.