February 14, 2013 | Flossing my teeth

Last night. I have finished brushing my teeth, paying particular attention to scrubbing up and down at the back after a dentist’s recommendation. I grin at my balding self in the mirror. ‘How wonderful to have clean teeth,’ I think. Reaching for the dental floss, I pause.

Why am I flossing?

A mass of thoughts flood through my mind, tumbling and churning. I am reminded of my own mortality. Why does it matter anyway? If I’m not supposed to be here in twenty years, what use is this extra time spent flossing my teeth, which will last that long perfectly fine with just brushing? If our long-term future is one that James will most likely carry, shouldn’t I simply be encouraging him to floss his teeth, considering mine are already better cared for? Am I wasting my time on all this irrelevant stuff? Am I losing sight of what matters?

It goes on like this for a while until I manage to stretch the grin back across my face. “It makes me feel good,” I tell myself, “that’s why.” I begin to floss, making sure to get between each and every tooth.

Yesterday I had written a quite serious piece about futility and purpose, and the role of the little things in life, and keeping hope. But I read through it and realized that it wasn’t a very accurate reflection of my life at the moment. You see, every day is a pleasure.

When I’m not throwing up (like I did in the car today) or entertaining headaches, or sleeping, life is brilliant. I’ve been able to continue as normal really – with the difference being living on the other side of the world and living a completely different lifestyle.

…improved, I could perhaps say. A little lacking in friends and those I love, I’ve had a lot of fun wearing wigs each day, to the point that I feel sorry for people who are always stuck with the same hair. How boring! Each day radiation is a delight – being greeted by Sharon at the front desk, receiving the “hello Darling, you are looking gorgeous today!” and going for little walks hand-in-hand with James at dusk. The small things in life like watching a carrot be crushed and squeezed in my juicer, or cooking a four-course Valentines meal with James for mum and Guy are perhaps more delightful than ever…as is the sight of a sunset and the lights flickering on in the city from our place up here in the sky. To lie down at the end of a day and know that it’s been a good day has an extra sweet feeling of success when you’re not supposed to be feeling good.  Ha! And while on the wonderful things in life, I can't leave out that wonderful thing called romance (can I say this is more fun with wigs too, or is  that too much for the public?). For everyone who was involved in the making of James and Connor's Valentines day creation - click here - I can't thank you enough. It brought tears to my eyes.

Today, however, has been a little more difficult. This morning at 8.45am I had the second egg collection procedure. I was worried about it due to the last one being so painful (for so little results) and had mentally, and physically, prepared myself. After eating ‘fertility foods’ for weeks, not doing any strenuous exercise and putting on a couple of kilos, I was hopeful. Plus, this time we weren’t dealing with defrosted semen.

The procedure was still painful, but much better. They gave me a high dose of sedatives (hence the nausea today) and had an expert find the vein to put it in, saving the six or so jabs they gave while trying to find the right one last time. From this point I don’t remember much, as I was rather loopy. James has been mocking me recently about my inability to act with any convincing emotions beyond happiness, surprise, and love (I fail miserably at ‘anger’). After the drugs had kicked in, I told him I was ‘just acting’ loopy, which improved my score as an authentic thespian.

Anyway, despite the higher dosages making today unpleasant, and the now familiar feeling of knives in my uterus each time I move, it was most certainly worth it. Although I can’t be too sure at this point how many will survive, they collected 12 eggs, which is at the upper end. Last time with six there was only one success, and so a moderate hope would be three more considering the better sperm situation. I admit I’m smiling as I write this. It’s weird how this sort of thing can make those innate ‘motherly instincts’ come out – we were laughing as I held my stomach last night to protect the eggs and said I was incubating.

I’m not sure how I get back to the flossing thing from this tangent, but I guess it all boils down to that all-important little thing called hope. I’ve had to make a conscious choice to live for the future and still make plans…albeit different ones to those before. It could be easy to give up the idea of a long-term future, and start preparing for the worst, but even if it is ‘logical’ to prepare for the worst, who really wants to live like that?

Tonight will be the first night James and I are able to drink (a glass of) alcohol, so I’ll leave you with a toast – here’s to the future!