I’m halfway through week three of intravenous antibiotics, and it’s taking its toll. I’m feeling quite worn down, and life is heavy. Sometimes it’s difficult to distinguish between the side effects of the drugs and the infection, and I can’t shake the fear that I’ll finish this course of IVs and still feel sick.
This is also the season when I take time to reread T. S. Eliot’s marvellous feat of a poem, ‘The Waste Land’. I imagine I’m not the only one who, over the past year, has gained a deeper understanding of Eliot’s cruel April. April – the month when the world is meant to come to life again, has suddenly turned into a wasteland filled with reports of mutated viruses, third waves, and worsening situations. Spring in the wasteland is both disappointing and quite hopeless – nothing comes to life, nothing grows or wakes up. The land is thirsty and shows us fear in a handful of dust.
I think I’m just trying not to feel so alone. This past year has been painful and full of messy, gross emotions, leaving me feeling incomplete. I’ve struggled with my treatments, been sick more often, and it’s a lonely place to be when you’re unwell without your network of support around.
I’m carrying this pain I didn’t realise was pain until just recently.
But after April comes summer and summer might surprise us.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
You can read and listen to all five parts of T. S. Eliot’s poem here.