Dear Reader,
The following essays were written a while ago now but never shared. I am mercifully in remission and intend to stay there for the rest of my days. A cure is coming closer, and it might even be that I have it right now, flowing in my blood, the result of the clinical trial I ended up in. Cutting edge science, and I’m still alive. And there’s lots left to do! Stay strong, people.
Jen
The Record: Harvest
Blood cells are slated to be on their way out of my body in 48 hours.
My back throbs. I didn’t expect to feel it there. I was thinking bigger bones, like thigh bones, pelvis. But no. Each heartbeat pulses a dull pain into my spine as my bones go into hyper-drive and make millions of stem cells.
The shots are easy. I thought they’d be scary, thought they’d sting more, but they’re not and they don’t.
This isn’t the first time I’ve taken a treatment that I knew was going to hurt. I knew my bones would swell and ache. I knew I was going to be in bed for the weekend.
This treatment feels different than the others, though. It’s a stepping stone to the big one, which is a supplemental and necessary procedure that will hurt and will make me nauseous; it will take my vanity and throw it out the window.
These are the types of things that go on in a hospital. You give up your privacy in exchange for eliminating in a special plastic commode beside the bed.
I’m soon hooked up to a machine that takes my blood, spins it around really fast, and then pumps it back in. I have a thick tube in my neck to make all of this possible, and it hurts like hell. But I have nice nurses today; they are playing it fast and loose with the oxy.
My kind of people.
The Record: Spring
I have four more months. Come May, I’ll be in the hospital and sick as a dog.
Maybe that’s why I feel the way I do now. Eager and desperate and in love.
Something has bloomed in me. I trust him where before I didn’t. I thought I did, but I didn’t.
And now I can’t stop thinking about him.
We’ve been through hell. There’s no other way to describe it. In our 25 years, it has just been one disaster after another. Family Crisis. Cancer. Family Crisis. More cancer.
But without it all, I wouldn’t feel this way; I feel very certain about that. Because what this is is a huge release of energy. A release of a lifetime worth of doing the impossible.
Now I have four months. Four months before a decision needs to be made. Before things could end for me.
Like, they really could.
I’m not as scared as I was before, though on the day I enter the hospital I will be. Things will fall apart for me, then. I’ll be balding and vomiting and running a fever and trying not to shit my pants. These are things that will happen to me; they are inevitable.
I will lose weight, so I’ll eat cake now. I will lose hair, so I’ll enjoy caring for it now. It will be months of recovery, so I’ll live now. Cherish now. Love now.
I can do these things, because suddenly I have a person I trust standing next to me.
It’s too bad that it’s taken me this long to figure that out.
The Record: Green
What will happen next? A bone break? Organ failure?
Live in the moment. Live in the moment.
I read a meme: Changing your perception and just being grateful can turn around any situation in life.
I believe this to be true on a fundamental level. But despite the fact that I believe this, it’s not working. When I think about how lucky I am to live the life that I do, I’m just not grateful.
Instead, I have fear.
My therapist says that I need to focus on healing. No big projects. More massages and acupuncture. Less stress.
Less stress?
I have three more months until The Big Day, the day that they pump poison into me, so strong that I’ll need to stay in the hospital for three weeks so I don’t die.
I wonder who will shave my head. They say balding hurts. Maybe I’ll be so sick that I won’t care.
But I doubt that.
I’ve bought hats. Wigs are not for me; I’m not fun enough for that. Or brave enough.
I hope I am brave enough to face what’s coming. I hope I don’t turn into one of those skinny, bald patients who can barely stand, much less walk. I’m overweight, so skinny should be enticing to me, but not this way. I see the other patients in the waiting room, their heads usually covered but sometimes not, their skin pale and off color.
It’s like looking into my own future, a mirror of what’s coming up fast.
I look away and try to pretend it won’t happen, that I am unique among them. The skin on my bald head won’t turn that particular shade of green.
And I pretend. Because It’s the only way forward, and I’m hell-bent on living.
