Half Way There!

Today, Thursday, is my Official Six Months Post-Transplant Day. Where DOES the time go, darlings?! To treat myself I've got two choices: I can either go hang out with 10 friends and their sick kids, eat supermarket sushi, have some of those free samples in the bakery aisle, and use the public lavatory.

OR

I can do what I've been doing for the past umpteen days: sitting my bunda at home and avoiding germs.

I think I'll go with the latter. It's just good sense, no?

Especially since, as last week's post indicated, being half way there doesn't mean my immune system is "half way better" or "50% improved." When I caught a cold last week and managed to fight it off pretty quickly I asked if maybe my immunity was coming back. The NP said kindly, "It could be." Then put her work hat back on and said, "But I doubt it. You're on a lot of powerful medicines designed to help suppress viruses. Without them you'd be in a lot of trouble even from a cold." E gets shut down by reality!

Regardless of my continuing house arrest, which is made more bearable by walks when not too cold and newly-arrived workout videos that are literally kicking my tuchis, I'm still and always glad to be here. It has been an amazing journey. Not one I'd ever have asked for, not one I wanted in my wildest nightmares to embark upon. But amazing nonetheless.

I've learned that sometimes the only way out is through. That friends are God's gift to us for good times but most especially for bad. That your children give you gray hair, they ensure you never sleep a full, restful night again, they blow open a hole in your heart that can only be filled by their good health and happiness, they take years off your life. But they also save your life too. On bad days when I was so sick and thinking guiltily to myself, "This would be so much easier if I didn't have to worry about a kid," that was really me admitting that the stakes were too high to give up without a bench-clearing brawl of a fight. It sure would have been easier to not feel the desperate, overwhelming urge to get better and stronger if Bambina hadn't been around. Knowing that she needed me to not only feel better but act like I was better, talk like I was better, and make HER know I was getting better was a massive and profound daily kick in the pants to get over myself.

Which brings me to the other thing I've learned: No amount of positive thinking will make bone marrow grow. It will not cure cancer. It will not heal a spinal cord. It will not, in and of itself, save you from a damn thing. But it will make the journey easier, more bearable, more hopeful, and sometimes more successful. I decided that this could be either the worst year of my life (plenty of reasons to think so) or the best prelude to a second chance at life that anyone has ever been lucky enough to capture. I've always kind of subscribed to the theory that you should never have a sh*t time when you can just as easily (or perhaps with just a wee bit of effort) have a smashing time. Chemo, fevers and this ongoing daily slog of a recovery put that theory to the test, but I'm pleased to say that 10 out of 10 stem-cell-recipients-named-E-who-write-a-blog-with-the-word-Haggis-in-it find it to be a theory worth supporting.

Just my 2 cents on Day 183.