4.5

It's official friends.  I had my tests done last week, and I am now a four and a half year cancer survivor.  In December, I'll reach that big ole five year milestone and I guess really be considered "cured".  It's an odd way to look at it, because it means that these past four years since treatment, I have not been considered "cured", and therefore it can be assumed, was still ultimately a cancer patient...

But to be honest, although I posted a facebook status and tweeted about my good news, I wasn't all that excited.  That sounds so bad.  I was--and am--so grateful to be healthy, and of course, I was quite relieved. But I can't honestly say that I was overly thrilled by the news.  Which sounds bad however I try to justify it, but still.

I think part of it has to do with an experience I had in the waiting room.

Going to the hospital to have those tests done is always a little bit odd.  I still feel like I know that place better than anyone, even though it's been so long.  I decided a while ago that I would go to my follow up appointments alone.  When you bring your entire family with you, it feels like a big deal.  I mean, it is a big deal.  But it feels like LESS of a big deal if I go alone.  I clearly play a lot of mind games with myself.

I always stand in line to get my hospital badge printed wondering if it's going to be an easy or difficult ordeal. If it's an easy ordeal, the lady at the desk simply asks for my driver's license, prints the badge, and hands them both back to me, sending me on my way to 4A.  If it's going to be a difficult day, it means that the lady at the desk has decided to be a pain in the ass and send me to wait in line at registration.  I don't know which one is protocol because it is so inconsistent each time.  If it's protocol to have to wait in line at registration even though you've visited the hospital more times than you care to remember, that's fine.  I just wish they would decide, and accept the fact that I'm going to huff and puff because I've earned the right to act like a bitch at the hospital--a right that doesn't matter at all, because I've always acted like a bitch at the hospital.

The bitchiness consumes me.  I can't stop it.  Unless you've taken care of me before--my doc for example, the woman who draws my blood every time, my oncologist's nurse--god protect you.  

I immediately get this pissed off heir about me, and respond to all questions as though you're really really annoying me.  I won't make eye contact with you.   God forbid you ask for a urine sample.  God forbid you make me list my medication more than once.  God forbid you even look at me funny.  AND YOU BETTER MAKE YOUR PEACE if you ask me how to spell Fanconi's syndrome.  This ain't no spelling bee.

The X-ray technicians always try to play cute.  I guess they're used to most people being like "yeah, my doc sent me for X-rays, but I dunno why, and I dunno what I'm having X-rayed."  Anywho, the technician will be like "OK, Jesse, can you say you're date of birth for me?  And do you know what we're going to be doing today?"

The answer: "3/25/91. You'll be taking four pictures--two of my chest to look at my lungs, and two of my pelvis.  First you'll look at the floor and ashamedly ask if I'm pregnant.  I'll say no.  You'll tell me to look straight ahead at the sticker on the wall, hold the bar above my head, take a breathe, hold it, let it out.  Repeat with variations.  You'll ask me to wait for a minute while you look at the slides to make sure you got good pictures.  If you haven't, we'll have to do it all again, and if you have, I can get the hell out of here.  BAM. "

I'm a master of blood tests.  Prick my finger, poke my veins, it doesn't phase me anymore.  As long as you give me a little "one, two, three, poke", I'm good.  Bleed me dry.  Have a ball.

A nurse will tell me to hop on the scale.  She's measuring in kilograms.  She'll awkwardly ask if I'd like to see what it is in pounds, to which the answer is "that's really quite alright, but thanks."  She'll ask me if I'm in pain, and by some lucky twist of fate, the answer is no.  I'm not in any pain.  I'm almost back to maximum flexibility, I'm able to exercise with no restrictions and not feel any sort of pain whatsoever.

It's all gotten so routine for me that I numb myself to the process.  I bring in my book and tune everything out until I'm spoken to, until I'm called, until it's my turn.  When it's done, I get my parking validated, take the stairs to the ground level, get in the car and go to McDonalds, because there's no better way to celebrate a positive doctors appointment than with terrible, delicious food that will eventually give me a heart attack, thus making all the chemo and radiation irrelevant.

But last week, I broke my routine numbness.  I was sitting in the waiting room, reading.  I'd already run into the doctor on the elevator and was feeling pretty at ease.  Across from me is a young girl, probably twelve or thirteen, and beside me is her mother.  The girl is eating some cheese and crackers, and is watching "Say Yes to the Dress" on the waiting room TV.

Occasionally, the mother comments on things going on around us.  She tells her daughter that she should probably have eaten a better meal before she came, because cheese and crackers isn't enough.  The girl says that if she was in school today, she'd already be at lunch.  Her mother says she remembers how they watched "Say Yes to the Dress" over and over again when they were in the hospital, and says how funny it is that it's always on when they're here.

A pump goes off in the other room.  If you've ever been in the hospital for any extended period of time, then you might be familiar with the beeping sound that fills the room whenever the pumps go off.  For me, it conjures up memories of tubes becoming twisted, the pump needing to be charged, a chemo bag empty, fluids needing to be replaced.  The beeping apparently reminds the girl in the waiting room of when you obstruct the needle by moving a certain way, causing the flow of medicine, blood, etc to be obstructed.  She says, "someone must have twisted the wrong way", and her mother agrees and they both remember all the times it happened to them.

Their remembering aloud distracts me from my book, and I start remembering, too.  I ask them if they're also former patients.

They are and they aren't.

The mother asks me if I have a blood disorder, too, and I tell her no, I had bone cancer.  She asks me the typical curiosity questions, and by the end of our conversation, they are being called in to their appointment.  The mother stands, and for the first time I see the two giant bags of clothing and supplies she's carried with her.  "Just in case," she says.  "We're prepared this time."

They're prepared just in case they have to stay over night.  It makes me want to cry.

I remember bringing in huge bags of "stuff" just in case my blood tests came back poorly and I had to be transferred to the inpatient floor.  Just in case my quick doctor's appointment turned into a long stay in a hospital bed.

I realize I'm lucky in many ways.  I'm lucky that I don't feel pain anymore.  I'm lucky that I'm healthy.  And in that moment when she asked me if I had a blood disorder, I actually felt lucky to be able to say "no, just cancer."

Because with cancer, all that medical poking and prodding--it's temporary.  You either endure and be cured, or you endure and then die. 

But there are people like this young girl...for whom hospital stays and needles and blood transfusions and platelet transfusions---all these things are the norm.  They're all they've ever known.  The struggle is ongoing.

I dealt with this shit for ten months and thought it was pure hell.  She's been dealing with it her entire life, and will continue to deal.  

It really changed the way I saw everything--and I'm not sure how or in what way.  But the news that I'm still in remission...it's wonderful...but I can't get that girl in the waiting room out of my head.  And all I can think about is how immensely and intensely human beings suffer.  This world is an incredibly unfair place, and many don't even realize it.  It's so easy for me to cheer and celebrate my remission and then resume my "normal person" life and forget.  Which, to be honest, is what I've done.  I've turned my back on that part of my life because it's too icky and painful to deal with...and that's not right.

I don't quite know what I'm getting at here.  Just that I really feel a lot of anguish that 95% of the world has no idea how lucky they are.  No idea whatsoever.

And I can't end this entry on a positive note for some reason.  Because there's no positive ending for it.  Everybody stop and take the time to really understand just how good you have it right now, and ask yourself what you really, really want.  And if the answer is not to wake up in the morning and see the people who love you...then maybe it's time to re-evaluate your priorities.