Another birthday

Yesterday was J’s birthday. We got to spend some time together, although he was feeling pretty bad, especially as the day went on.

We had some fun moments, especially when Amy and her boyfriend came over. They ordered food for us from a nearby Japanese restaurant, which is one of the places J likes.

It took kind of a while for the food (they always order delivery) so we got to have some fun conversations while we waited. We talked a lot about music, especially some artists that both J and I like (like The Cure.)

That was kinda satisfying for me, especially because it really showed how much we influenced the development of her own music taste.

It was just overall a very pleasant visit. I got some vegan lemon-poppyseed muffins for her. They got to see the cats again and we talked a lot about them. I showed Amy some new stuff I got (like a Texas A&M garden stone I bought yesterday) and she complimented me on my Christmas tree, which I’m really proud of how well I decorated—and even pointed out that she “wasn’t just bullshitting.”

Her boyfriend also brought his camera and we took some nice family pictures. That was before my husband started feeling really bad (or at least he wasn’t doing badly enough for me to notice—he may have been concealing it well.)

But as I’m sure won’t be surprising, the thought was never too far from my mind that I don’t know how many more birthdays I’ll have with him. He thinks he’ll at least see another one but I am not as optimistic.

This was the first year ever that we didn’t have sex on his birthday. That feels fairly significant—not in that I missed it but in what it seems to say about his overall health. He was really hoping to be well enough for that and he just wasn’t.

I keep thinking about what Dyl said yesterday, about thinking that J’s reason for living is to take care of us. I think he’s probably right. I know J has said that he at least wants to be around until I’m 50 so I can get survivor benefits. And I am sure that if he has any control over it, he’ll make it that long.

But the truth is that cancer isn’t always so controllable. And he’s not doing particularly well right now. He’s in that same state he was in last month, where he had to skip a chemo cycle because he wasn’t well enough to get it. That took a big toll on him, just as it is now.

And similarly to when he went through this last month, it’s hard for me to keep up my optimism through this. I just see how much he’s suffering and there’s nothing I can do to help.

He is having a really prolonged coughing fit right now (like for over an hour) and it’s possible that that might be what kills him. I am not so happy about my research skills sometimes, because they tell me about all the ways this is possible.

It’s really, really fucking hard to watch the person you love most in the whole world suffer. And knowing that they’re going to suffer even more is unbearable. I hope his suffering will be lessened somehow. And I hope I’m somehow given the strength to get through it.