"What's broken can be mended. What's hurt can be healed. No matter how dark it gets, the sun's gonna rise again."
-from Grey's Anatomy
I promise I'm going to continue talking about the BMT/SCT process, because that's what I aim to do with this blog. But I also want to be authentic. Because if there are people out there reading this who are going through the same things, I want them to know they aren't alone. So every now and then I'm going to do a reflections post and just kind of check in with how I'm feeling.
So, real talk: I am 100% terrified and anxious all the time. It's affecting my blood pressure. There is not enough Xanax in the world to put to rest the fears that I have and the general feeling of being overwhelmed.
I want this transplant. I need this transplant. Because I want to get my life back. I do not wish to be chained to my bed and/or couch forever and this is the best way to do that. I may still be chained to my bed and/or couch for a good long while. But at least it will be because I'm working towards something and it will be because I'm in the process of getting better.
I was a ballerina for over 20 years. My first ballet teacher, Mrs. Otto, always used to say to us "No pain, no gain." And now I think that that there has actually been proof to the contrary that pain doesn't always equal gain. But I still look at things kind of that way -- like there's always a price on something you want badly. So I look at this BMT/SCT this way, too -- I have to pay a price.
What's that saying? You can have absolutely anything in the world you want if you're willing to give up everything to have it. I think it's something like that, but more eloquently. I'd do just about anything to make it so that I could get my life back and really live.
I have big dreams.
The biggest of them being this: I want to live in New York City. I can't explain fully what it is about New York that makes me want to move there only to say that it's a feeling so deep and so desperate that it can only be part of my soul, part of what makes me, me. When I visited for the first time I took the train, because I couldn't afford a plane ticket and the trip. And when I was coming out of the train station, I could just feel this energy. And when I got to the curb to hail a cab, I could see the Empire State Building all lit up and I knew immediately that it was the place for me. Since then, I've spent a LOT of time in New York. I consider myself a part time New Yorker. But my biggest dream is to just be a New Yorker. And I'll never get to be a New Yorker the way I am now -- but a few years after a BMT/SCT ... that might just be doable.
I also want to get my business back. I'm a LuLaRoe consultant and I LOVE LuLaRoe. I've tried a lot of direct selling and LuLaRoe just has my whole heart. And it's going to be extremely hard to bring it back. For more than a year now, it's just remained dormant, because my energy is just not there. I can't even make it down stairs to the basement to work in my LuLaRoom. But I want to get it back so badly.
I want to finish school. I was just getting ready to finally figure out what I wanted to do when I got cancer. I was kind of all over the place my first handful of years in college. I looked at it as a right instead of a privilege. And now I see what a privilege it was and I miss it so badly.
I want to travel. I have friends I consider family in San Diego and Seattle. I have actual family in Oregon and Hawaii and Pasadena. I want to go all these places and see all these people. I want to travel overseas.
And this transplant is the best shot I have at getting to do those things eventually.
But there is this fear. The "what if I'm not strong enough for this" fear. The "what if this kills me" fear. I'm terrified of Graft-versus-Host-Disease (GVHD). And there's just the fear of the unknown. I've scoured the internet for blogs that detail what exactly happens each day. There aren't many of them, which is part of the reason why I'm doing this. I want to know what each day is going to be like and the thing is, even if I found dozens and dozens of blogs detailing what the experience is like, it doesn't mean I'm going to experience it that way, because it's different for everyone.
I'm just so scared and nervous and anxious and a little depressed all the time.
And then there's the anger. The anger that I have because the standard of care for CML didn't work for me. There's feeling like I got sold on an idea that turned out to be untrue, that CML was the "easy cancer." And there's a little bit of the "why me?" game. There's also some grief. I've lost five and a half years fighting, time when I was supposed to be building my life, but couldn't. And there's grief for the next year or two or three that I'm going to spend just trying to put myself back together as a human. There's grief for the immense change my life is going to go through.
So that's where I'm at right now. I want this transplant, I need this transplant, but I also wish that I didn't need or want it. I wish things had turned out differently for me.
I can go through all the science of it and tell you what each step is like. But I want whoever is reading this, if they're going through what I am, to know they are not alone. And I want everyone to know that this process is not all strong and warrior-like. People tell you you're a warrior when you have cancer -- and you are, I would never discount that. But sometimes the people around you who don't have cancer expect you to project that all the time and truthfully, it is just simply exhausting. There are days when you won't feel like a warrior and you couldn't project that image if you tried, and that's okay. You're still a warrior. You're just also human. It's okay to have your moments or your days where you don't feel tough or strong -- just know that eventually, you will again, and allow yourself the time to feel, to grieve, to be angry or sad, and then the time to heal.
xo,
Heather
No comments:
Post a Comment