The Night Before

Arpiné, my in-house photographer, took this of me this evening. She came by with Andrew and it's ALWAYS so nice to see them. I'm not usually fond of putting "hospital-ly" pictures of myself on the blog, or on facebook, or anywhere, because I still don't relate to being sick. Often, I still can't believe it's me. But this picture captures a lot.   Waiting, excited, patient, calm, appreciative, nervous, glad to be here, the night before. I realize that this transplant is happening. And even though I feel as well as I do, I KNOW I need this transplant!

I'm wearing only pillows in this picture because of an allergic reaction I had to two medicines. One is an anti-biotic that makes me feel itchy itchy itchy all over. The other is Tacrolimus. This is an important one. It's the anti-rejection drug. But it makes me feel like I'm heating up on the inside. My actual brain felt hot! So they're taking that down a few notches. I offered to duke it out, considering I'd rather heat up inside than reject my new stem-cells, but they're very focused on finding the balance between efficiency and comfort here. 

They said that the cells will go in later tomorrow. I think they have to go through some rigorous checks at the lab. I asked if the cells were already here, but the lab had already closed for today. Nurse Practitioner said no news is good news. So I'll stick with that story.

Right now I don't really know what else to say! It's been such a long haul. And it's happening. My original title for this blog, "To100DaysandBeyond" is actually starting! Tomorrow. Tomorrow is day 0, and then we count up to 100 and I should be feeling much better by then.  Much less tired. In my sloppy calendar counting, it seems like December 29 will be day 100. I don't really know what to expect in these 100 days, except one thing: no more Leukemia. Thank you very much. I'm rather done.

As I sit here, I just feel like remembering some of the great things I've done in my life so far. Funnily, the first one that springs to my mind was this thirteen-mile walk Andy and I did from the Cape Canaveral National Seashore back to New Symrna Beach, collecting fabulous conch shells along the way. I don't think my feet ever hurt more, walking on sand juggling 4 shells like that, but it was so worth it. 

The second that comes to mind is, of course, having children. My goodness, the persistence it took. Plowing through and yet also emotionally processing seven miscarriages to have them...  Maybe the underlying similarities here are that our best accomplishments and successes often come with grueling beginnings.  

What about the first time I ever taught English as a Second Language to garment union workers in New York? As I was walking to work, up 6th Avenue, I had the hugest anxiety attack. I had never had one before, and hardly one since. But I kept walking, tears uncontrolled and streaming down my face, and I went taught that class.  As it turned out, it was the most fun, most rewarding beginning to a great career in that field. 

Another great thing was learning to teach yoga. In fact, my first real dedicated encounter with the Intergral Yoga Institue was when I signed up for a retreat in Yogaville in Virginia. I just signed-up and didn't really read the fine print... I took a plane and a train to get there and then a Swami in burnt orange clothes kindly picked me up at the train station and brought me back to the ashram. The whole time in the car I am talking-talking-talking. Asking her all about herself, what's it like to live in a spiritual community, how's their relationship with the town outside the ashram?  I'm interviewing.  I will often do this just because I like to know about people. But as we start rollling up to the Ashram, she said to me, "You know, this is a silent retreat?". Wow, it was the first I've heard of that! It hit me like a brick. That's what I missed not reading the fine print... "What's that?" I asked. I soon learned that it was a four-day retreat where you only listen. You don't talk at all, to anyone at any time.  If you have a question, you write it down in a note and hand it to someone at the approprite moment. 

I had no idea how I was going to make it through the weekend. Nor could I see any value in not talking for so long. But after the major difficulty of keeping my mouth shut and getting through day one, it became really interesting. The first thing I noticed was how much I project onto people.  Just by looks alone, I thought I could surmise whether a couple was married, happy, what they did for a living and where they lived.  By day two, I cared less about that because I was completely grappling with holding my tongue and not interjecting every thought I ever had, every minute of everyday, into every conversation I ever had or overheard. It was so difficult!  But, I learned, in fact, that if I didn't always introject my every opinion, I still existed and the world continued on.  What a relief!  After that, I went on to take many different yoga classes and trainings, and I have had the pleasure of teaching yoga to all kinds of people, from ages 0 to 85. 

I guess I'm saying the most rewarding things can come out of the most grueling tests. It actually lessens my anxiety about the transplant. It may be hard, but hard is not always bad.