Previously on The Murder of Ted…
Ted found new ways to wear me down, from an unexpected spider attack to an imaginary asteroid strike, but I fought back with humor, imagination, and a little sparkle.
This Week: The battle gets harder, the little men stage an unexpected revolt, and just when fear starts creeping in, Ted loses a little more of his territory.
Thank you for joining me on this unexpected, uncozy adventure.
The Murder of Ted
A Series of Unfortunate Events, an Uncozy Adventure
Chapter Thirteen: An Unlucky Turn Toward Dark
Every sleuth knows the bad guys don’t just sit around waiting to be caught. Sometimes they fight back, and Ted was getting really good at throwing curveballs.
By week 5, my emotions were low.
The positivity that had surrounded me in the beginning was starting to dwindle. Many of my new friends were feeling it too. We were sick and tired, struggling to find the energy to keep fighting, and the caregivers were starting to show signs of reaching their breaking points, too.
How were we supposed to hang on?
Freya and her team of Valkyries continued each week to rain nuclear terror down on Ted and his gang, but even with their expert strikes, there were far more casualties than we had hoped for.
I was still thankful I had chosen this route, but fear was starting to creep in.
Could I survive this?
My mouth hurt. Eating was becoming difficult. Everything tasted like salty, bitter garbage, and my struggling body continued to lose weight. I was slipping into muscle cachexia, and I was beginning to wonder if this diet was all wrong for me.
When I voiced my concerns, I was actually asked, “Well, you want to live, don’t you? Just eat more meat and fat. You make this hard on yourself.”
Like my suffering and my skeletal state shouldn’t be a concern of mine. As if I could just magically like the foods that I have avoided most of my life. They made me sick when I wasn’t fighting cancer.
That hurt.
I was trying to fight Ted, but I was also trying to keep the rest of me alive and functioning while doing it. It never has been about not wanting to live. This is a tough road to walk.
I’d like to paint you a picture that everything has been rainbows and unicorns during this journey. But unfortunately, these dark weeks have been more like my rainbows and unicorns have been painted black and white.
At least there are still unicorns and not swamp creatures or demons, right?
Because that’s what Ted wants. He’s trying to turn everything dark, and I wasn’t going to let him.
My husband and son had gotten back to town, and my son came up to stay with me.
He was the light, the glitter I needed.
He’s a firefighter and a true hero to all he helps. There is nothing he can’t do and he renewed my strength.
Just being around his positive energy made me feel better. I could see the worry in his eyes, but his hugs were so powerful that even when I cried, I felt safe in his arms. Having him here was exactly what I needed.
I am blessed to have such a wonderful young man for a son.
He cooked my meals. He carried my stuff, and most importantly, he hugged me tightly every time I needed it. Which was a lot.
He spent a week with me, which was absolutely what I needed because my mental capacity was starting to dwindle. I had written so much more of this story in my mind, but with the chemo brain ramping up and my emotional status somewhere around crybaby level, I lost most of the good stuff to my black hole of a brain.
By the beginning of Week 6, my husband was with me too. And while my son had been a very good replacement, my knight in shining armor was really all I needed.
Just having my husband with me pulled me a little farther away from the dark side. I had been dancing on the edge. My emotional state was unstable at best, and all I wanted to do was have him hold me forever and never let me go. I was so happy to see him. It felt like we had been apart far longer than three weeks.
My husband’s strength through all of this has been impressive.
He knows just what to say when my emotions go crazy. And when scheduling or financial debacles come up, he swiftly takes care of them for me.
Not wanting me to waste an ounce of energy on anything that isn’t fighting Ted.
He would say, “That’s all you need to do. Nothing else matters.”
And he was right.
But Ted wasn’t going to sit quietly and let us enjoy it.
Ted continued to grow angrier and throw curveballs at us.
One of my treatments requires a unit of my blood to be removed, cleaned, and then returned to me.
A week earlier, we had a little trouble with some of my little guys freaking out and apparently thinking I was dying, so they tried to clot up.
Luckily, they didn’t make it into the bag. Just the line was thrown out.
This time was different.
I was still exhausted from the previous week’s treatment when I went to IV therapy with Trish. They drew my blood for the cleaning treatment, and once again, my little men started clotting.
Only this time, my little men decided it was an emergency.
Apparently, they had had enough. They rafted together inside the bag. A full-on little-men clotting convention.
Unfortunately, Trish couldn’t send them home with me. She had to throw them in the trash. I couldn’t have them back. Once they were inside me again, they had the potential to cause clots. The danger was too great, and it was a hard no on returning them.
Do you know how hard I worked to make that blood?
I mourned the loss of several of my quarantined little buddies. They had been doing their jobs.
They had been fighting the good fight, and now they were being sent to the trash.
It was a discouraging farewell that caused mild panic since my blood counts had already started taking a dark turn, but there was no time for a funeral.
The next mission was figuring out how to grow more little men within an already declining blood-health environment thanks to chemo.
So, for the next forty-eight hours, it was:
Beef. Beef. And more beef with a side of spinach. Yuk! However, when your little army starts disappearing, you feed the troops.
While all of this was happening, fear was creeping in again. Ted’s voice kept whispering. That creepy stalker seemed to know what he was up against.
I did my best to hand it over to Jesus and ask Him to take care of it.
By the end of the week, I was so run down that I looked up at God and said,
“I know you are carrying me through this, but could you carry me a little higher? I think you’re dragging my butt through the sand.”
He did not respond. At least not in words. But I knew He was there. I knew the only strength I had, even when it felt like the tiniest little sliver, came from Him.
Ted doesn’t have that.
After the farewell to my little blood buddies, I scrambled to have my treatment rescheduled for the same week. Ted needs his poison, and no amount of casualties was going to be enough to stop me from murdering him.
My next treatment was one I have talked about before, and I have developed a serious love-hate relationship with it.
Mostly hate.
I dreaded the injections. While I will spare you the horrifying and incredibly gruesome details of Ted getting a good stabbing, I did receive another piece of hope.
Another piece of God’s glitter. The tumor had shrunk by about 25% since treatment started.
That was huge.
Ted’s squatters had lost a substantial amount of real estate.
There were high fives all around the cancer table.
Ted was taking some major hits!
I think it’s time for another evil laugh.
Mewwhaaa!
Take that, Ted.
But as I’ve learned during this mission, every piece of good news seems to come with something waiting around the corner to remind me that this fight isn’t over.
We had another emotional farewell.
A friend of ours with pancreatic cancer had finished treatment and was headed home to see her kids and grandkids while they waited for the PET scan results to see whether Ed was finally dead.
We hoped with her, and I wanted desperately to believe that Ed had finally met his end.
She deserved to go home and hug her kids and grandkids. She needed to close the door on this chapter and leave cancer behind.
But cancer doesn’t always follow the rules, and as I watched her leave, I was reminded that while Ted had just lost 25% of his territory, the war wasn’t over.
Not even close.
The mission was only halfway done, and the weeks ahead were going to test every bit of strength, faith, hope, and glitter I had left. There were still unicorns, even if they were black and white, and as long as there were, Ted hadn’t won.
Stay tuned for the next episode of Chapter 14: A Sleuth’s Breaking Point
Ready for a Cozier Mystery?
After spending all this time following my very uncozy investigation into Ted, you might be ready for a mystery where the murder is fictional, the clues are fun, and nobody is trying to turn your blood into a science experiment.
Good news. I write those, too. 😉
Meet Taryn O’Kelly, a party planner in Silver Springs, Colorado, who has a knack for finding trouble and an even better knack for finding murder.
There are small-town secrets, questionable suspects, a meddling best friend, a handsome private detective, and plenty of shenanigans along the way.
Oh, and unlike my current investigation, Taryn’s cases come with happy endings.
Start with Party Planning for Murder, Book One of the Taryn O’Kelly Mysteries, then follow Taryn through Frost and Foul Play, Cruises, Cocktails, and Corpses, and Sparks, S’mores, and Scandals.
Because sometimes a girl needs to put down the real-life detective notebook and pick up a cozy mystery instead.
The murder is always on the guest list.
And don’t forget, the antidote to the uncozy is a cozy mystery.
Until next chapter…
Happy reading.
As always, thanks for stopping by for some Salty Inspirations! -Michelle ❤️
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