a bed to die on

When I got my diagnosis, I also withdrew all my shares of Superior Plus so that I’d have some flexibility to buy the groceries I wanted and some things to get my home a little further along in the furnishing process. That project remains ongoing, it’s slow without stores around for home furnishing. There is however, the Brick.

I went to the Brick and bought a new bed frame with drawers in it for my queen size mattress, and a brand new king size mattress with an adjustable remote controlled base, that helps you sit up or put your feet up. Now that I have two beds, friends and family can visit. I have the ability to host.

The mattress is just a regular nectar mattress, that was inflatable, but now seems like a standard mattress in form and function. It does bend reasonably well, but it doesn’t yet feel like it is melded with the frame and I’m not sure I won’t need something more suitable at a certain point. For now it is fine, for now I’m nowhere close to dying, which is the reason I bought it.

In September 2020, in the middle of Covid when no one was being all that neighborly anymore, I watched my dad spend his last week alive in the downstairs living room of his house, uncomfortable on a $1700 grey couch from Dodd’s furniture. He couldn’t climb the stairs to a bed and I think he liked having the Discovery channel on in the background anyway. At least that couch pulled out, and gave a little bit more room to sprawl out, but Grant was uncomfortable that last week – opioids were a real necessity.

I knew then that I’d like to also die at home if I ever had cancer. So when I got the influx of cash in my chequing account and a brand new diagnosis, not knowing how bad it was or if it had spread, I went out in search of a bed to die on.

My bed frame, purchased in May, was delayed from the factory and I just received it yesterday. The guys from the Brick assembled it and then showed me how it works. To my surprise, there were also 3 massage features on the bed – a complete bonus because I bought it for the remote controlled adjustable base only. It also has a feature where you can speak to it and tell it what to do if you lose the controller.

Yesterday evening, I made the bed and then tested out the massage features. The white noise of the vibrating bed when it was on Head massage was enough to make me very sleepy, but the sensation itself was a weak vibration. This morning I went through the features, and one of the setting with full bed pulsation is quite relaxing. I would not buy the Ergomotion quest 2.5 adjustable base for this feature exclusively, but the bed comes with a 10 year limited warranty. My inner technical writer looks forward to perusing the owner’s manual.

I sadly think I will need a bed to die on now. The pitfalls of living in a small community have me waiting for the singular surgeon in our area to fit me in. He’s the only one on call here, and probably is already dealing with a backlog of appointments that have been waiting for him to return from a well-deserved vacation. Meanwhile, since I discovered it, the recurring lump in my neck has grown from the size of a pea to the size of a grape, and apparently it’s protocol for the local doctors to fit me in.

I’m very upset because it’s been a roller coaster. On June 17th, when I spoke the oncologist, the PET scan didn’t show cancer in my body. However, there was this new small pea sized lump I’d just discovered. He wanted me to see a surgeon about it. I had an ultrasound that couldn’t rule out pathology. No biopsy was ordered.

Yet here I am off work, totally available to go to Kelowna or a larger centre. If I don’t hear from the surgeon today, I’m unlikely to hear until next week, and I don’t want to wait another week while this growth gets bigger and it’s already starting to be painful, though that could be psychosomatic.

I don’t know what to do. We really all are at the mercy of the medical service providers when it comes to life-threatening health conditions. They decide who lives and dies. Seems irrational to me that they would let it go from a clean PET scan at the end of May to perhaps requiring another by July. I’m very tired of waiting for my treatment plan, I’d like to get the show on the road.

But alas, here I am with an owner’s manual strategizing how to make my last week of life it’s most comfortable. Put in a position where I’m expected to wait to die. There isn’t anyone to ask other than BC Cancer and the local surgeon’s office. His receptionist has assured me I’m priority, so fingers crossed that isn’t just kind words.