Hope Springs Eternal (Dammit)

If you do a Google image search for "hope" you're going to find a lot of images like the one I've pasted here. Lot's of reassurance that there's always hope, hope springs eternal, hope changes everything, hope creates the impossible.

Blah, blah, blah.

But in a way it's true. Not in the sunshine and rainbows way that the Google images project, but in a more problematic way. A way that forces you to make a bunch of unreasonable choices because you think things might change when, quite frankly, they won't. 

No one would accuse me of being a particularly hopeful person, but I find as I'm making choices about treatment and how to spend my time that I'm making a bunch of stupidly hopeful decisions. For example, there is not one doctor I've interacted with yet that believes my cancer is curable. They are all just trying to postpone the inevitable. And as I've noted, chemo -- even the-limited chemo I'm doing -- is absolutely horrible. So why do it? Why put up with the side effects if all it's doing is delaying the inevitable?

All I can figure is that it's delusional hope. You figure that despite the fact that everyone's telling you there's no chance for a "cure," maybe some miracle will happen. 

But miracles don't happen -- at least not the kind of miracle that make putting up with the horror of chemo worth it. 

And yet I still keep going in for the infusions.

Stupid. 

Stupid. 

Stupid.