I am shivering under two blankets. My fever is up. I am sneezing and ache all over. Flu season? Yes, but Beijing influenza isn't the reason for my symptoms. They are side-effects of the chemotherapy that dripped into my chest port a couple days ago. For two hours the I.V. bag, thumb-tacked to the wall, delivered the paradoxic treatment. In order to get better, or to survive temporarily, I have to become sicker.

Every month, as long as I choose to endure it, I will have Chemojing flu. At least with this drug I will keep my hair and have limited nausea. In addition to the monthly infusion, I take a host of pills which have side-effects too. Then there are more pills to swallow to counteract those side-effects.

My oncologist upped my oxygen level one-third. She increased the time-released Morphine one-third. Yet, well-meaning folks tell me I look good. That statement is a pet-peeve of a lot of my metastatic friends. We don't know how to respond to it. While we are glad we don't look like emaciated war prisoners, we somehow feel our integrity is being challenged. Like we are being accused of somehow faking the disease. There have been times when I have wanted my x-rays around to show people what is going on inside which they can't see. I have a notebook full of medical reports that aren't the least bit hopeful. The word "terminal" unavoidably sticks out, a reminder that this is a marathon life and death battle.

I wonder if ignorance would not have been more blissful. If I didn't know this was widely spread cancer, I would have thought the bone pain was arthritis. The breathing problems asthmatic. The low energy old age.

I cannot in good conscience just sit and wait for death. However, there are self-imposed limits as to how far I will go before compromising my fragile quality of life. Except on my worse days, with measured effort, I can still write and teach my Sunday School class. This is my fifth year with the Builders Class at McConnell Memorial. The class is very understanding as I port my oxygen tank to the front of the room, frequently sip water, and occasionally make a dash to the restroom between lesson points.

When you get to this stage in life, the phoniness is gone. You are who you are, transparent to the soul. You may as well be. Everybody who knows you, or knows of you, is aware that you are the "lady with cancer." Having a terminal disease is like having a huge, gray, dying pachyderm in the living room.

In one of Anne Landers' columns, Terry Kittering shared a similar comment: "There is an elephant in the room. It is large and squatting, so it is hard to get around it. Yet we squeeze by with 'How are you? 'And 'I'm fine'…and a thousand other forms of trivial chatter."

People seem to timidly dance around mortality. Death is inevitable regardless of the course we take. Dying, for me, isn't the primary issue. I am ready when He is. Death is the easy part. Living day to day in the here and now is much harder. I need some chicken soup.