Faith

Good morning from the hospital. everything is fine here. i am feeling nice and calm and happy to be moving forward. each month seems to get a little easier. i keep thinking back to december. i kept thinking this was all a nightmare and that I'd wake up soon. everything was a little foggy and i was in disbelief. i kept getting mad at the idea that i could die. its one thing to know you are human and will die one day but a much sadder thing to feel like something is in your body, killing you right now. as positive as i tried to be in those first few weeks, I couldn't control my thoughts, worries and anxiety. a small thought about death was able to spread around in my mind like a wildfire and burn and burn and burn. and it mostly happened in the middle of the night. it'd wake me up and I'd feel sick to my stomach. ive never felt that destroyed and damaged and sad. now, i think i can say i've moved on from that stage of shock. being here reminds me I have things to face and get through and I've got to keep it moving. i've got to progress and strengthen my mind and body as much as I can. im convinced im going to live and not just live, but live a good and happy life. it was a hope in December. now it's faith. after a conversation with my moms on Sunday, i now realize that's a dramatic difference. you need both, but what you need most is faith. my faith is getting even stronger. it grew more on Sunday morning when a pastor and the elders of the church placed their hands on me and prayed over me. When I looked down to close my eyes and pray, I saw my son looking up at me through the layers of arms and he grabbed my hand and stood still until the praying was done. I cried because i was overwhelmed with gratitude and they were also happy tears. I knew then that everything was going to be alright. My son's eyes reminded me of that. i still get down, though, about what my lifestyle will be. chemo and all of its side effects, for instance, might become long-time, uninvited guest of mine even if this transplant is successful. Im still adjusting to that idea but it will be fine. i will just have to adjust, adjust, adjust and keep it moving. i have to adjust my idea of what i wanted my family and career to be. i thought i'd always be juggling 20 things at once and chasing a house full of kids around. but I'll probably slow down a lot and that's not necessarily a bad thing. i've had to go from sprinting on a track that I designed to trying to climb out of a pit that I never saw coming. the blessing is that i fell in with so many tools - prayer, a praying family, a strong, loving husband, a son that needs me and family and friends that remind me that this world is good. i find myself still grieving over the loss of the track that I had designed and worrying about what long-term challenges I'll have to face even once i get out of this pit. But maybe in another 3 months ill overcome the worry as well and get even better at focusing on the day at hand and better at letting go. i have to tell myself what i tell my busy-body son when he's supposed to be picking up his toys but gets distracted and starts instead to play his guitar or drums, putting on a concert. "Focus," I say. (The problem is he repeats it back and for some reason, it always sounds like he's cussing us both out when he says it.) at least i know with all of my heart i'm getting out of this pit alive and well. i might look drastically different. i might think drastically different and I expect bruises and scars. but i will adjust and i will find a new normal and i will move on ... and i will stay happy.

Spring 2011?

Sitting here, enjoying my Friday evening with a glass of wine. Had fun watching Michael Jackson in "This is it" and then watching my son try to play every instrument along with MJ's band. I haven't been working but I'm still saying TGIF. This is going to be a nice, fun spring weekend with the guys. I've been craving the warm weather. My transplant has been rescheduled for the end of the month and my plan is to just have fun until then. The weather is too nice for anything else. Meanwhile, I can't help but daydream about how things will be this time next year...I'm looking forward to it because I'm only expecting the best.

One Day At A Time

Tuesday. March 9, 2010. 8:00 p.m. I haven't written in a few days. I think I'm kinda tired of writing about cancer. It can be depressing. Lol. And today I'm feeling good not down. Spent the sunny day away playing with my son. He has a cold but just like any energetic toddler who won't be stopped by the sniffles, he completely ignored it and kept going. So we played outside in the sun and watched cartoons and ate blueberry pancakes, applesauce and grilled cheese sandwhiches. I'm happy, tired and full. Nice day. My plot to beat this thing? Taking things one day at a time. And today I feel good. So I am good. Knowledge isn't always power. It can also be debilitating. The hardest part about all of this is mental - knowing that I have cancer means my thoughts are on steroids; they're almost always running full force and they're mostly sad and wreaking havoc. I feel like I'm in Galaga, the old arcade game. My goal is to zap the worry and anxiety before they attack my ship and tip my thinking into a dark black hole of sadness and fear. Once you go there, it's hard to bounce back. My goal is to replace worries about the future - concerns about my health, my job, my family -  with the happiness I feel in the present. So far so good, but it's a struggle. Thank God for kids. We're taught to plan out our future and think ahead but my son reminds me how to be young and resilient, and innocent and happy and to live in the moment and keep running and playing no matter what. You should see him smile. Thank God for that smile. I remind myself that right now, I'm happy. I'm with my family. I feel good, and today is a blessing. 

Back In the Chair II

The stories at the clinic can be wild. The guy sitting next to me earlier this week got diagnosed with mutiple myeloma 8 years ago. In addition, he also had severe kidney problems related to the cancer. He got the call in December like me - a time when you really only want to hear about snow men and reindeer and Christmas lights and mistle toe. His call actually came right on Christmas day. He was out hunting with his son and felt fine. He was in his 50's living in Pennsylvania and had had some broken ribs and bone pain. The test results confirmed he had myeloma. The doctor didn't provide many options; gave him only months to live. "There must be something you can do," the guy said, according to what he told me. But the doctor didn't have much to offer. So the guy found a unique clinic in Little Rock, Ark., that specifically focused on myeloma. (I did some digging. He's probably referring to the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy. I hadn't heard of it before this week.) The cost to save his life was incredible. He says he spent $110,000 of his on retirement savings to pay for his stay, travel and treatment there. He said he wasn't ready to die and he was going to do whatever it took. His mother in law had been diagnosed with mutiple myeloma a month before he was. She died, though, despite the fact that she also went down to Arkansas. The chemo just didn't work. But this man, who shares my doctor, is alive and grossly defeated the odds. After being in Little Rock, he found out about my doctor and decided to undergo treatment in Baltimore, which is significantly closer to his home in Pennsylvania. He had a stem cell transplant -actually two back to back - and it kept him in remission for 8 years. Unfortunately, the cancer has come back, which is why he was sitting next to me getting "infused." The problem with cancer coming back is that it can become resistant to the old chemo drugs. It also tends to come back stronger. Luckily, there are new drugs our doctor is trying. And he's planning to have another transplant. He's already defeated the odds once. I don't see why it wouldn't happen again. What's interesting is that he's the son of a preacher. He said that while he was in the hospital after the transplant he went into a coma, largely due to his kidney issues. They thought he was gone. All he remembers is a dream in which God came to him and said, "Relax. You don't need any more medicine today. You are fine." He said God gave him the exact names of the drugs the nurses were going to try to give him when he awoke. But God told him he wouldn't need it and to turn the nurses down when they attempted to give it to him. He did. He said he woke up, praising God and attempting to rip away all of the tubes attached to him. He walked out of the hospital the next day feeling as if he had only been dreaming for a night when in fact he had been in a coma for days. What's also interesting is that several people in the area where he lives have been diagnosed with myeloma and other cancers. I'm not working right now, but I'm still a curious journalist and this just doesn't sound right. "We think it has something to do with our area," the guy's wife said. The guy's brother in law was diagnosed with cancer. He tried to get him to go to our doctor but he was reluctant to go to a doctor three-plus hours away. He died. So did another family member. He's even seen patients at other hospitals die after their transplants. He just kept saying how much respect he has for our doctor and how good he is. He said he thought he was too young to get cancer. If he thought he was too young at 50, I know he thought I was ridiculously young at 30. Maybe that's why he felt an urge to tell me his story. He kind of seemed like he was surprised that I was being hooked up just like him. As he told sadder parts of his story, his wife kept things upbeat and said to me, "Your young and strong. You'll be fine." And the guy kept praising our doctor. Our profiles are completely different. He's white, middle-aged and from a small town ... and a stranger. Honestly, I don't even know his name. We never did the whole exchange thing. Just went straight to the point. He opened up to me about deaths in his family and his deepest fears. Not sure I really wanted to hear every detail but overall, I did walk away with a brutally honest picture of what it's like to be thrown in a cancer battle and survive year after year. He's back in the chair 8 years later. But I'm not worried for him.