I'd been debating sharing this on Mastodon, then in letters I've
already leaked this in most letters, as it's sitting like a
Tyrannosaurus Rex in the room of my mind. People on Mastodon
have other gravities besetting them: a global pandemic, for one.
My husband has fast-devouring, metastatic liver and pancreatic
cancers. I have to drive him to the United States for treatment.
Canada Border Services pesters me: where was I? What did I bring
back? Search the trunk! I'm under mandatory quarantine for two
weeks, except for essential travel! What's my email? What's my
phone number?
I'm stuck with raging cancer-case who's either dozy or irritated,
griping or groaning and moaning, and a petulant, self-absorbed,
flighty young adult male who will not use this as opportunity to be
helpful and gain independence. He has to shop as I'm in MANDATORY
'self-isolation' yet he drops the debit card out of the pocket,
every time, and comes back freaking out he's lost it. He could
put it in his wallet immediately after extracting it from the paypad.
I could put it in a soft translucent, flexible plastic case,
clip it to a lanyard and make him wear it. Giving him cash is not an
option. I could ask volunteers at DeltAssist, but he's got to learn.
I was doing laundry and making dinner in my mid-teens, he's taking
culinary arts. Great! I said, more than once. Once a week, cook a
meal, I'll buy the groceries. I've offered this to him since late
October. He doesn't bother. What's important? /r/baseball sick burns
and Zac Greinke quotes. He should be thanking me and doing my
bidding without question out of gratitude. LOTS of people want to
leave the US, not have decades of student loans to pay off, have
a sane leader checked by a representative and fairly elected
government. He should be initialing squares on our monthly/weekly
house chores grid. He should be shouldering some of this burden.
But of course cancer doesn't exist. Never mind it still kills
more people worldwide than COVID-19 does. Everybody else healed
their cancers so they can all finger-wag and chide and be all
social-distance-warriors at the dumb rubes like us "STAY AT HOME!"
who have no goddamn idea how a nonsmoker with only cancer on his
maternal grandparents' side gets sudden death. We should have
thought of getting cancer before the pandemic, or just magically
cured it. At least that's the vibe I'm getting from PM Justin
Trudeau, Premier John Horgan, and Health ministers Patty Hajdu
(federal) and Adrian Dix (provincial).
In my mind the wrong spouse got cancer. I moved back to Canada
thinking cancer would devour me at my age, as it did my mom,
and did I want to live in the US? I didn't want to live period.
Now I have the imminent and sudden loss of my husband to deal
with, and someone who won't come up with creative solutions
to overcome his weaknesses, who won't initiate good habits and
success/betterment -- "use a bullet journal! Create reminders on
the task lists of your email accounts! Use a Windows app!" Naaaaah.
I can't go out and geocache, because the federal government will
likely be using GPS on my phone to trace my routes. The bright
side is that the exercise room is eight metres west of us, so I
could workout there away from those two for 20-30 minutes.
