twists 'n turns and then some

This unwellness is a moody business. From a happy little oxycodone pill to ease an aching tooth to a tumble stumble one after another kind of day, I am pulling out of what I might call a 36-hour hell. In a matter of a half hour by late yesterday morning, I went from assuring the medical staff that I did not need a gurney to be wheeled into the x-ray room to nearly fainting out of a wheelchair. I'm a rather independent sort and I neither enjoy nor have a habit of being in these states. It's damn humbling. This pill there, a heave into the PICC-line (my 3-way insta-catheter deal) of anti-nausea medication.... it was a woo-woo day. Blood pressure decided to spook a number of folks by eventually averaging around 85/56. More fluids and products in veins, more laying in bed, nurses and Dr. K. in and out of the room most of the day and well well into the wee hours of the night. I find it an odd manner to keep away the leukemic cancer cells while I ponder and hope for an eventual bone marrow transplant in the coming x-number of months. And I thought that cruisin' back in for Consolidation while feeling so relatively hale and hearty would be a piece of cake! Not so. Not cake.

At least the angst has been eased by the opulent box of homemade French Madelaine's my dear high school chum Susan sent all the way from Humboldt County in Northern California. (We here at Alta Bates did make a few lame jokes about what may or may not also have been added to the cookies). This is part of my love healing, from prayers and chants, to my neighbors and friends coming by with holy vibrations, food and clean laundry, to phone calls, to the wonderful cards and gifts!!! arriving daily. I wave weakly in gratitude while I am embraced in pleasurable succor. Chris and Alice mailed me a darling petite silver Christmas tree that is perched atop my mini-fridge. George's friend Lisa regaled me with posh chocolates. Nursing staff bring me pink lemonade. Alan and Michele are asking me what I'd like brought over for Christmas Day dinner. 

At times I am gutted by self-pity. It's CHRISTMAS, it's Advent. I don't want to be in a hospital room wondering about six-figure escalating medical bills bantied about by insurance politics that play now we've gotcha, now we don't!.... vacillating between feeling grateful to be alive and then wondering how much time I have and why in heaven's name I don't get to put a finger on it. Wishing to write and share with you, then wishing to simply slither under the covers in dull anonymity. I used to feel so alone at times and yet I look around my room and feel cherished. I see a Kleenix box with Wall-E on it, sent from Susan & Klaus in Atlanta. It's our private little thing, like our bat medicine theme. Seemingly innocuous morsels can remind me that each breath has merit, pained or exulted.