Blue Evening

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June 14th, 2010

Chapter 1: The L-Word Chapter 2: Having Fun With Cancer Chapter 3: Blue Evening Drip … drip … drip … go the toxic chemicals that are killing all my bone marrow cells, good and bad. And as I lay here feeling physically fine, I miss my boring ordinary Sunday night family routine. Marci’s editing pictures, […]

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Chapter 1: The L-Word

Chapter 2: Having Fun With Cancer

Chapter 3: Blue Evening

Drip … drip … drip … go the toxic chemicals that are killing all my bone marrow cells, good and bad. And as I lay here feeling physically fine, I miss my boring ordinary Sunday night family routine. Marci’s editing pictures, Skye is taking a shower, Taylor is working on some last bits of homework and I yearn to be part of the subtle sway of my home filled with females.

My doctor, a wonderful man from India, knows in his gut that he’ll have good news for me about my bone marrow on Tuesday, “But I want to see it on paper in front of me.” I too can visualize him reporting, with a smile, that they caught this bitch early enough so a total and complete cure is in sight.

The incredible support I’ve received from long-time family and friends as well as brand new folks who have just appeared in my life is staggering. You don’t always know how truly connected you are until an event like this transpires and suddenly you are invited to see a rare glimpse of how humanity acutally works. My wife wrote on her Facebook wall that she didn’t realize all 479 of my “friends” were actually friends without the quotation marks. It has made my blue, sad, tearful jags briefer and almost silly in a way. How can I get down when everyone is rallying around me.

There have been acts of amazing kindness, extreme silliness, and just plain sweetness like the Radkes who tonight brought me a basket of suckers with the phrase “Let’s Lick Leukemia” stuck onto every stick.

In my funkiest of funks I wonder why this is happening: did I really just have nothing else to do, was I that in need of new things to write about, or did I piss off the devil with that 666 story I wrote. But then the eternal optimist in me grabs hold of my hair, (the hair that I’m told will soon be vacating the premises), and says, “Look, a-hole, it’s because you had nothing else going on that you cleared the time to listen to your body and caught this early on.”

The guy down the hall from me has been in and out since January because he showed up in Emergency back then with pneumonia. He has exactly what I have. But his hair has grown back, then he lost it again because he caught another infection and was back here for another round and on and on. But the thing is, he’s fine. He’s much older than I am and yes, I’m taking comfort in other people’s stories but I think I mentioned earlier how connected we are on this planet.

I’m rambling. I can tell. I’ve seen this in me before so I’ll pull these horses to a halt and circle the wagons for the night. I’ll take one more self portrait to give you the mood I’m feeling tonight then I’ll gratefully accept my first sleeping pill and drift off.

Tuesday can’t come soon enough.

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