Time

TIME is the indefinite continued progress of existence, the events that happen in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present and into the future.  Time is borrowed, we do not own it.  Time is constant, it's always there.  Time is always moving, you can not hold it or stop it.  Time is elusive, difficult to find, catch or define. 

Time, where does it go. Why can't you bottle it up and drink it later? Why does sometimes it moves so slow it's like walking in quicksand? Then other times it moves so fast you can't catch your breath as it whirls by. I have let time slip by and have not blogged here for over two years.  At my age, two years is just a blink of the eye. I remember when I was a young girl my Dad telling me that the older you got the faster time moves.  Today I know this to be true as I feel the hands of time moving faster and faster.  

It feels like only yesterday when the Doctor changed our lives with these seven dreaded words "I'm afraid its Stage IV Advanced Cancer". 

The Doctor assured us it was incurable, there was nothing the medical professionals could do for Jim except try to keep him comfortable while the Cancer consumed his body and life.  No miracle surgery.  No miracle drug.  No miracle treatments for us.  At first we were in denial.  He looked the same.  He acted the same.  He accepted the pain that comes with Cancer like one accepts a headache, wishing it away.  As the pain became more intense, we finally accepted the diagnosis and became Cancer warriors fighting the battle we knew we would never win. 

At first they gave him low dose pain pills.  Then he began taking more and more.  The medications they gave him to take daily did shrink the many tumors that popped up inside his body.  The ongoing infusions and treatments seemed to help and lessen the pain.  But like time, incurable Cancer is constant.  Cancer has a way of increasing the pain no matter what medical procedures are performed to fight the ongoing war.  After two years of medical treatments, procedures, and medications the pain has risen to a level that now is treated with Morphine and a high dose of Hydrocodone.

Jim no longer looks the same.  In the last couple months he has lost about 50 pounds.  He weighed about 230 pounds before the diagnosis,  He now weighs in at 163 pounds.  At one point he got down to 155 pounds then we started buying more fattening foods like ice cream and candy and cakes.  He doesn't really want to eat now... but makes himself eat knowing he must.  He's also experiencing 'spasms' almost daily that he says knocks him to his knees and he barely hangs on until they are over.  The pain medication does no good when it comes to these 'spasms'.  

Jim is a real trooper though. Or perhaps a real bandit.  He's dubbed himself the Mad Hatter Bandit, wearing his Jim Dandy top and steampunk goggles with a feather in his cap!  He works through the pain and recently started a new hobby that has given him a new outlook on living.  He's now anxious to get up in the morning and his creative juices start flowing washing the pain clean away as he makes wood replicas of his BB Guns from his BB Guns collection.  We "ou and ah" over each piece then hang it up on our living room walls like they were million dollar art pieces we found at the Art Gallery.  

These art pieces are immune to time.  They will last forever if not destroyed by unseen circumstances.  But more than that, they will last forever in my heart, until the end of my own timeline.  I will always be grateful for the little bit of peace and joy the BB Guns gave my Dude in the sunset of his timeline.