Fear and Fearlessness Live Side By Side
Teisha Sept 11 set 2 244
Saturday morning, the day after the appointment with Dr. Meyer and the cast and crew of the BMT (bone marrow transplant clinic), Julie London’s voice is singing across the kitchen, the dogs are groomed and curled up asleep, I am on page 97 of a book called “The Year of Magical Thinking” by Joan Didion. I can hear the furnace blowing warm air into the house and the fireplace is crackling with the firewood Uncle Karl brought to the house. I am polishing off the last of the banana smoothie Mom made for me this morning and working on drinking copious amounts of water. Yesterday I got good grades on my complete blood counts. My chemistries showed the kidneys are a little bit troubled by all the stuff they are trying to process so they gave me extra fluid while my doctor wrote out notes for the plan for my treatment (and cure, damn it.)She gave me next week off to continue to recover from the bout of pneumonia that rocked my world and also agreed that I could start the process of receiving chemotherapy on an outpatient basis so I won’t have to check into the OHSU Spa until the final steps of my second transplant, which will happen about six weeks from now, give or take. At that time, I will check into the 14th floor of the Kohler Pavilian for about thirty days. Then it will be home to recoup. I have come to understand how something can be terrifying and exhilarating all at the same time. My fear and fearlessness live side by side, or so it seems. When the waves of worry threaten to drown my faith I feel the pain of the not knowing and then try to remember that this is the way of the world. Nobody knows. There is the plan for my immediate future, there are potential risks and potential rewards and then, there is just today. Music in my ears, time to read and relate, a warm bath, a walk around the block and an evening spent watching my one of my god-kids perform in a school play. Hurray for today is what I want to say. Written 2/12/11