Coming Up For Air

How many days has it been?  Thank you to my Aunt Dee and Jen S. and Arpine for schlogging through this with me. How am I doing this?  Andy and the kids are flying back to New York tomorrow. They've just gotten over their jetlag and here they come again. Poor guys. It will be three weeks to the day since I've seen them. 

I've been back in a room by myself because, well, first I tested positive for a cold, and then well, came the cold.  It's important I don't get anyone else on the floor sick. And when they pulled my room mate out at 5:00am a few days ago, I knew the lab results had returned and I was Germ-Girl again.  So out the roomate went. But I've heard that she did not get the cold AND she got a private room. So, that's cool

Since here, I have had every part of me xrayed, MRIed, CAT-Scanned, EKGed, poked, listened to, blown up with water and evaluated. Head, brain, mouth, sinuses, chest, lungs, heart, abdomen, arms, legs, feet. The saline they pumped into me when I spiked the fevers, stayed in me. And until yesterday, I had 25 extra pounds of water weight on me. It was unbelievable.  I was a Michelin Man/Woman. Today I can actually see that I have a human shape and that I was actually once pretty cute looking. 

So, they are keeping me here, I guess, mainly because I have absolutley no white blood cells to fight infection. Well, that's not true, I have 0.1. And I'm proud of it. But it seems the more chemo you do, the longer it will take your bone marrow to return after treatment. I imagine come Saturday or Sunday I'll start losing my inner calm and will start making garbled and tearful cases for why I have to get out of here. Case number one being that my family will be here and I want to be with them every second. But there's a part of me that's hesitant to do anything that's not 100% Doctor Stamped for Approval.  This moment in my life is way too important.

I hear rumblings of folks talking about my transplant.  I think that the donor being unavailable for two weeks is inconvenient to the doctors. I imagine that my most ready moment might be sometime within those two weeks and the decision is, do they rush things, or do they delay things? Do the little ailments I have now (a cough, a sore in my mouth) preclude rushing things? All good questions that will of course get answered sooner than later. Marty came to visit today. He's always got the nicest things to say. Today was, "You never asked for this disease and our hope is to eradicate it for you forever".  Major Mensch as always.

I feel in a way like I'm just coming up for air.  So much happens during chemo. And at the same time, nothing happens. I get a few hours of good energy and I'm like, "I'm cool. I'm outta here", then blop, "Where's the bed?!"

Dee being here kept me in stitches.  She's funny, gorgeous, smart, kind and completely my friend and my idol. She raised four fabulous kids, has 9 amazing grandchildren, cared for my uncle so lovingly till he passed.  She's a Life Embracer. 

Jen S. spent every second of this gorgeous weekend with me in this hospital.  She brings healthy yummy food, an orchid, backrubs, and she let me cry my eyes out at the end of Across the Universe. It's such a beautiful Beatles opera movie. For sure in my top ten favorite movies.  The last song is All You Need Love, sung with such heartfelt dedication to every word.  I have an All You Need is Love button on the lapel of my down jacket (down jacket in London, you ask? Oh for sure...).  I truely believe it is all you need. (Love, of course, not the button. Or down jackets. Unless you really like those things).