On Some Real Shit...

Hellooooo peeps.  Hope you're all enjoying your last bit of summer and all that jazz.  I have, in fact, not had any diet soda for one whole week.  It's a BIG ASS DEAL.  Like for real.  WTF.  I don't know how I did it.  I'm very proud of myself.  We'll see if I can keep it up.

Anyhoooo,  I know a lot of people are going back to college, or just starting college (this post is probably even more important for those of you), and I hate to be the Debbie Downer of the internet, and mack on all your righteous shots, beer pong, and sex-havin', black-outin', rootin' tootin' good times...but I'm going to anyway.

First things first, I am not Mother Theresa.  I know we are all completely shocked and taken aback by this realization, but alas...it's true.  I'm no saint.  I don't want it to sound like I'm being a total hypocrite, because I'm not perfect.  But please, please, please...read this post, and take heed.

I always wonder how I appear to everyone at school.  I don't really "party"  (insert last name joke hereeee, pat yourselves on the back for being the first to think of it), and if I do go to a party, I don't usually drink.  And if I do drink...I am proud to say I have never, ever, ever gotten myself to the point where I don't remember what happened, can't keep myself together, am throwing up, or pass out.  I don't care how square I seem, or how lame, or whatever.  But I refuse to do that to my body, and I'll tell you exactly why--

I vividly remember the first time I sat in the day clinic at University Hospital.  My hair was still intact, I was wearing the same clothes I'd been wearing to school just two weeks prior (even though I was swimming in them now that I'd been losing weight), and I guess all in all things hadn't sunk in quite yet.  It still wasn't real.  I sat between my parents on a green bench with blue polka dots, and made mental note of how tacky this place was decorated and how I was now fearfully afraid of apple juice (that's another story).

All of a sudden I looked up to see a skinny girl in a maroon-and black wool cap being wheeled out from the treatment room.  (Note: I am not making up these descriptions---I literally remember everything about these days).  Anyway, the girl was clearly bald underneath the cap, and she had tired eyes (a combination of exhaustion and no eyelashes or eyebrows).  I stared at her for several seconds, and I remember just drinking in the entire picture: a scrawny, bald girl in a wheelchair, looking exhausted and frail from treatment.  It finally sank in that this was going to be me in a matter of weeks.

I remember I started crying, and my dad asked me what was wrong.  I nodded in her direction. He asked me what about her.  'She looks so sad,' I recall saying.  My dad looked confused, and whispered back, 'she doesn't look so sad to me.'

Truth is, she wasn't.  She was never sad, or afraid, or crying, or bitchy---all of the things that I most definitely was.  Her name was Heather, she had been battling a brain tumor for just about a year now, and she was not afraid.

At least never in front of me, or my family...or really anyone else I spoke to who ever saw her.  I got to know her during my next treatment when we became roommates.  When she came into the room, I remember being nervous...still startled by my initial impression.  But Heather was totally chill.  She sat doing puzzles in her hospital bed.  Her dad cracked jokes all the time, and her mom did everything to make sure that not only Heather was comfortable, but also tried to make my family comfortable.

The first afternoon we shared in that room together...I had a little hissy fit over something that in retrospect was very foolish.  It was time to face the fact that I was most likely going to need to drop out of the musical at school...and I pitched a tantrum of epic proportions--complete with shouting, screaming, and all the kicking I could muster with practically no muscle in my legs anymore.  That also happened to be the day that my mom and dad took me across the hall to the little washroom to shave my head--an experience that I'm not quite ready to face up to yet, as I still to this day have nightmares about it.

I remember putting on my first wig in the washroom, drying the tears, and telling my parents that I didn't think I could face Heather after the afternoon of hell I had put her through.  But I gathered myself, and headed over to Heather's side of the room.

"Hi, I'm Jesse...and I'm so sorry you had to listen to all of that..."  Heather laughed, and said it was no trouble.  In her eyes, I could tell she totally understood.  It was this day that Heather, a fifteen year old girl who I didn't really know a lot about, became my hero.  

I learned that day that Heather wasn't having chemotherapy anymore...she was here to harvest stem cells for a stem cell transplant that would keep her in the hospital for 30 days.  It would be a grueling month for her--she would need to be isolated from everyone, and anyone who entered her room would be required to wear this crazy germ-free outfit.  They weren't sure when they would be able to begin her stem cell transplant--it all depended on how long the harvesting process took.  Heather left that evening, and to be honest, it is the last lucid memory I have about that round of treatment.  I ended up with a blood infection that kept me in the hospital for about 3 weeks, and I was so depressed and tired that I mostly slept.

But I remember the day I was finally told I could go home...it was the day Heather was coming in to begin the prep for her stem cell transplant.  I can't remember exactly what they had to do before she started, but I know she moved into the bed next to me, and her mother put up a calender on the cabinet door, so they could begin crossing out each day of the 30.  I had come full circle--beginning that cycle of treatment with Heather, and ending it with Heather.  I expected her to be a little more nervous, with the big transplant approaching...but I couldn't ask her about it because she was playing Wii tennis with our other roommate (who was 3), out in the day room.  Heather never, ever faltered.

Heather was in the hospital for a long time.  I followed her caring bridge page faithfully, and for a while it seemed like things were going well.  She came back up to 7H again, which is obviously better than ICU.  But her liver was severely diseased after her body's ultimate fight.  Despite the completion of a stem cell transplant, prior chemo/radiation, and the positive energy of thousands...Heather passed away from liver failure.

I remember exactly where I was when I found out that Heather died.  I remember what I was doing.  I remember what I ate.  I remember it all.  Because that day, I felt like giving up.  I didn't want to be a survivor if Heather didn't get to be one, too.  She was buried on my 18th birthday, March 25th, 2009.

The months went on, and my spirits got better...until all of my peers started going off to college while I still sat with a needle in my chest and a freezing cold bald head.  I began to hear stories of drunken obliteration.  Blacking out.  Drunk driving.  People getting kicked off campus for being shwasted all the time...and the worst part was...these people were broadcasting it all over facebook like it was something to be proud of.  Yes, you are the absolute shit for throwing up all over someone's lap, blacking out, and getting your stomach pumped in the emergency room.  The best times of your life, right?

I tried to write it off in my mind as everyone just having the college experience.  But then I thought of Heather.  Heather, who battled for a year and a half against a cancer that she did nothing to deserve.  Heather, who turned 16 in the ICU on a ventilator.  Heather, who was diagnosed at 14, never had a drink in her life, and died of liver failure.  

And all these proud, drunken idiots are obliterating their livers and being fucking proud of it?

It really makes me sick.  People wonder why I don't go out and party more, or drink my college nights away...and the truth is I can't let myself.  Not after knowing Heather, and her struggle, and how close she was to getting her life back--and how she lost it because of liver disease.  I know some of you may be thinking that this is a pretty outrageous reason to keep myself tame, and that I'm a total nut job for preaching to you like this.  But I just want everyone to realize that four years of obliteration isn't worth the damage you're doing to your body.  It's easy for people who have never been really sick to take their health for granted.  I know I sure did.  We all think we're invincible until the universe shows us that we're not.  I think of Heather a lot.  She basically gave me that first shred of hope that I needed to light a fire under my ass to fight the big fight.  I don't think--even if she'd lived 100 years, and I tried to explain every day--she could ever know the impact that she had on my life. I'll never forget her, and I'll always talk about her.  'I will read all her dreams to the stars'.  (A little Spring Awakening anyone??)

So be careful.  By all means, go out, have some drinks, get a little drunk and send some crazy-ass texts, make some dumb phone calls.  But please know when enough is enough.

Rest in peace, beautiful Heather.  I am forever in your debt.*

Jesse