Cruel

There's something particularly awful about waking up on the day after your father's 65th birthday party at which he's said he intends to be like the guy who was working on his 100th birthday and worrying that you might have pneumonia. I've been overheated again, enough to keep me awake at night, combined with a lot of stress factors I've had lately. Lost my boyfriend for a faraway land I'm not allowed to live in because of this fucking thing in my blood and losing my job because I didn't finish a qualification when things like that seemed suddenly less important than living all of a sudden. It's probably just a chest infection, but the irony is a cruel one. My father, fighting fit, dancing his heart out, while I fight fatigue and my t-shirt's patchy with sweat and I get home and fall deeply asleep, waking up damp and clammy with sweat.

There's no reason I shouldn't have a 65th birthday party, too, if everything works, if I start treatment when I need to and I stick to it all through the intervening 35 years, watching the people around me getting vaccinated against me, watching the world change while I'm totally reliant on the state, on drugs companies, for survival.

That my father could outlive me is something a son shouldn't have to consider.