3/9/09

Tomorrow starts another round of daily chemo, so although KD has enough energy to cause trouble, he'll probably be sleeping the rest of the week. We're back to the daily injections for this week. Next week is the Tuesday & Friday only. We've also got an appointment with the radiology department to consult for his cranial radiation therapy which starts next month. I can tell KD is a bit nervous about that.

When we first checked him into the hospital, he felt so ill that he barely cared what they did to him. The 8-hour wait in the emergency room while they did all the paperwork and blood tests seemed like torture to me but he hardly remembers it. I remember everything about that room, from the public service announcement posters on the walls to the pink press-on fingernail on the floor next to the trash can. Anything to avoid looking at KD hunched on the bed looking green and shrunken and fragile.

I don't remember feeling the fear then. I felt confident that 'they' would know how to fix him. I can remember the fear now. I suppose it's the same way that you can't tell the Earth is round when you're standing on it. You're so close and it's so huge, you can't see it for what it is. 

Now with his bone marrow at 0% saturation of cancer cells, and the end in sight (yes, actually about 5 months away), it's almost possible to feel like this is real and it's going to be okay. Maybe I can start breathing again. 

But I still wait for that next clinic visit, the next blood test, the next nurse that walks into the room with the worried look on her face. Because it's not over yet. It won't be over in five months. It might be over after the two years of 'maintenance' treatment. Maybe not. There will probably always be that fear of this coming back. Even when the cancer is gone, the fear will remain.

So then what? Isn't that the point of life? At any moment, it may be that time. You get the big phone call from God? So what changed? You don't live like that. In fear. You exist. But you don't live. After cancer, after chemo, after the body is healed, there's so much more healing to do. I think that's why people who have survived these sort of things call themselves that.

"I'm a ...... survivor." (fill in blank)

Because every day you have to celebrate that you didn't die. Instead of hiding under the blankets, you have to jump out of bed, beat your chest at the universe, and shout, "You thought you got me with cancer, but I'm stronger than that. What else you got? I'm ready!"