Next To Normal
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 at 2:34PM In my hospital stays so far with this disease and the freaky blood clot over in Muskegon I’ve craved lots of different things. I was on a pizza jag for a while, then burgers. Pepsi Slurpees have always filled the bill and an occasional carmel shake has been delivered by my ever supportive family. But the growing, all-consuming craving I’m experiencing these days is for normalcy.
I know I’ve given normalcy a bad rap sometimes in my life. There were times I’ve felt if things are normal, I’m not growing or expanding my horizons. Sure, it sounds pathologic, but I used to fear contentment. I distinctly remember a conversation with a long-ago girlfriend where I said, “If I start talking about end tables, just kill me.”
Yes, I capitulated and we have an end table these days. But back then it seemed so grown up, so settled, so usual, so normal. Now I crave normal. I crave my own bed. I crave not walking around with tubes coming out of me. I crave not having to schedule time to see my family. I even crave mowing the lawn.
I was moments away from getting a day pass out of this hospital last week to go see my daughter’s marching band show and at the last minute they rescinded it. I’m a grown man asking the teacher for a slip to walk the hallways. It feels so out of my control and yet I know all of this is for a great reason, my health.
But it’s going to be a while before I see normal again.
First my brother has to give me his stem cells. Even though they still call it marrow donation they rarely actually go in and take people’s bone marrow. Instead they extract stem cells just like you’re giving blood and then whisk it up to me where it’ll just drip intravenously into my Red River.
They will have given me even more chemo and a bit of radiation beforehand, then the recovery process begins with several more weeks in the hospital then perhaps up to a year of anti-rejection precautions and crazy things like getting all my baby shots redone since I have a brand new system.
I’m looking at normal occurring sometime mid to late 2011.
But will it ever be normal? Is this the new normal? Will I be able to go on vacation again and not fear waking up in the middle of the night with a blood clot? Or will my new normal include a perspective that I normally don’t have?
Will I be thankful for every day and treat those around me with a greater abundance of respect and admiration? Will I look at this as a second chance and an opportunity to get things right? Or will I be so thankful for normalcy that I just sink back into old roles and not feel affected by the shadow of cancer in my past?
These are all the random ramblings of a guy who’s been hospitalized far too much this summer so take them with a grain of salt substitute. I know my future holds change and growth and an appreciation far greater than I’ve ever experienced. But from the viewpoint of a gray hospital morning, that future looks vague and distant.
And then a large family walks, heads bowed, out of a darkened patient’s room a few doors down and their faces show incomprehension — the telltale signs the end is near — and I feel like a jerk. Here I am, hinting towards healthy and their options have run out.
Normally, though, you know I’m not like this.
Reader Comments (7)
Of course, you were never normal, and weren't ever really good at it as a result.
You were built for Abby Normal, and here she is. And you've been handling better than, well, better than anyone.
Even though she's not your ideal companion on this grey day.
But you shine bright to the rest of us because you suck at normal, by which I mean you have never been good at living low, taking for granted, and not bringing joy and light to the world. So your normal is brilliant.
Rodney, I can't tell you how much I wondered if there would ever be a day that I didn't wake up and think about cancer. I wondered if I could ever enjoy the "new normal." How do you live after facing cancer? But .... I am here to say that there are days that I wake up and I don't think about cancer. There are days that feel so normal that I feel guilty. You will get there. I will always have different concerns and fears that my friends my age will never understand, but life is normal again. Hang in there. :)
if i ever crave a caramel shake just kill me...
oh.....and i've been with Abby Normal....yo that chick is a freak!
Jodie your words continue to carry great meaning for me. Thank you for choosing to share with the rest the world.
And looky-loo, it's the Kurt and Sharpie show back together again after all these years. Call Saga Bob, let's have a Goo-gee! Thanks for the kindness Kurt and the humor Bryan. Where's Reamer or Joe Bob?
Every so often, it's kinda cool and comforting to find the center of a bell curve you can curl up in and rest easy knowing that someone else is out there at either end of the distribution taking the hits for you.
That's the cool thing, though, about all this is that, yeah, you're gonna have a new normal. Health will probably be something you think about a lot more frequently than you used to. Part of it's just being an old fart and having Big Pharma take up the slack our aging systems create, but other parts of it, well, you know...
One of the things, though, that struck me about 12 or 13 years ago, was that the normalcy that I felt growing up is all kind of a sham. Everyone has their dramas, their issues, and, to them, those things are important.
And don't feel like a jerk. It's gonna happen to all of us. Someone, somewhere, sometime will flip off the lights.
If we're lucky, we'll get to say good night.
I understand the desire to be normal. One of my ways of dealing with it is a refusal to be a part of any group that stereotypes me
as a cancer patient/survivor, old person, cripple, or hunchback. A new kind of normal has emerged. Where I used to drink a lot of beer I drink only water. My oncologist and I agree that perhaps my survival is due to having goals, reaching outside of myself. Look forward to that.