Author:  Shana E. Smith (SLIAD@aol.com)

Title:  To Hold Off the Haze

Classification:  VA

Rating:  PG (strong emotion?  because I hate most G's?)

Archiving:  Please?  Pretty please?

Spoilers:  Cancer but no specific episode

Summary:  What it feels like to be desperately ill.  
The Ubiquitous Ramble:  I know that there are a lot of Scully cancer
pieces out there (I've read most of them).  I know that you are probably
getting sick of them. However (you know there was a however didn't you?),
I wanted to write this one because...well, because I needed to.  Reading
all of those fan-fics describing what Scully was going through (and, for
that matter, Mulder) it occured to me that something was missing in most
of them, no matter how well written.  The missing element seems to be
first hand experience with devestating illness.  You can't know what it
feels like, from either end, until you've experienced it.  I have a lot of
experience I'm going into a career in which I'll obtain more.  This story
may not be as well written as some of the others but the emotions and,
yes, angst are firsthand.  

BTW, we all know that the events of the last episode will be shown to be
false so I'm ignoring it until CC forces me to acknowledge it.  

**********

I'm not really afraid of death.  What, really, is there to be afraid of? 
Nothingness?  At least it would be over.  Plus, as I've told Mulder I know
for sure that whatever comes after death is nothing to fear.  Plus, when
you live with the knowledge of your own death, day in and day out, you can
become quite blase about it.  It becomes *boring*.

The funny thing about being ill is that the illness isn't the worst part. 
It's the fatigue.  That all pervasive thief of your strength, will to
live, and desire to fight the illness.  It's so hard to care that you're
dying when all you want to do is sleep.  You know that at some point or
another the pain will probably take over but it's so hard to care at this
point.  

They tell you to fight.  To fight the pain, the despair, the disease. 
"Fight to keep your life as normal as possible."  Like it's so easy.  You
just decide one morning that you're going to give in?  Well, the
temptation is there, but it doesn't happen like that for me.  It just gets
so hard to dress with the same care that you always did.  It suddenly
takes to much energy to put make-up on.  It won't matter if you let your
hair go this once (week, month, ect.).  One Sunday you realize that you
haven't gotten out of bed all weekend. That just makes it all the harder
to move come Monday.  And the cycle goes on and on.  You feel helpless to
stop it.  Feeling helpless makes you depressed.  Depression makes you
tired.  Do you see a pattern here?

Everything, every move, every thought, every electrical pulse occuring on
the cellular level, occurs through a haze of fatigue.  You can literally
see it gathering on the edges of your eyesight; it looks like a shimmery
white haze.  You become this person that weighs whether it is worth
getting up to eat.  If you can eat.  Eating takes energy and you don't
have enough.  

So you stop eating sufficiently.  Your body, already bombarded by disease,
has even less to go on.  It does the only thing it knows how to do -- it
reserves strength by sleeping.

Your mind takes on the white haze of your eyes.  You can't think clearly. 
All you can do is push blindly on and do your best to "act normal".  Maybe
you fool those around you. Maybe you fool yourself.  You can't fool your
body though.  It knows.  It'll be back.  It won't let you win for long.  

So you cry.  Not great wrenching sobs.  Those take energy you no longer
have.  Just silent tears running down your cheeks.  It happens at odd
moments:  driving home from work, eating dinner, a sappy passage in the
latest woman's magazine.  Stupid stuff.  Almost never will you actually
cry about what is truely wrong.  That you don't think about.  Why else
would you be writing about it in the third person?

The worst part is that you can't talk about it.  If you do, you'll break. 
Whatever it is in you that makes you you, will snap like a twig and you
will become an empty shell.  So you hold it in.  You cope.  You loose
weight, grow paler, sleep for inordinate amounts of time, and secretely
pray that someone makes you talk because it's no longer worth being who
you are.  Anything has to be better than this.  Anything.

No, I'm not suicidal.  I'm not willing to give up.  I'm not willing to
hurt Mom and Mulder like that.  I'm not willing to believe I'm that weak. 
I'm just not sure how much longer I can hold off the haze.

**********

Well, that's what it's like.  I didn't edit in order to keep the rambly
feel (like I can write any other way) so I apologize for any spelling,
punctuation, or grammatical errors.  Mulder's side may follow.  Let me
know if you want it at SLIAD@aol.com In fact, I'll take any commentary
there!

Visit my website where angst is not allowed! 
http://members.aol.com/SLIAD/index.html