February 20, 2006
There is sunlight and warming this morning, and we drove to the oncologist’s office early so I could get the fifth of seven sets of injections of the chemotherapy. Throughout this experience, I have found that tears sit right below the swallowing point in my throat, and occasionally, there they are. This is one of those days; sitting in the car returning home from Lincoln, a terrible longing for the rhythms and activities of my old life came flowing up from the base of my throat and the weeping began. Even knowing that I am like the crying child watching my fine balloon floating away far beyond my reach never to be seen again, it still seems necessary sometimes to grieve.
I visualize the condition like this. My blood is the landscape under siege with the disease (the enemy) entering the terrain and moving inexorably onward. The chemotherapy (Vidaza) meets and does battle, with the Aranesp (red blood cell builder) on the one flank, and the Neupogen (white blood cell builder) on the other. Now the disease is no longer moving freely onward, but is met by resistance and its intended takeover is no longer inevitable; it is not stopped (“The disease remains active” in the words of the doctor) but it no longer is unchallenged. The battleground is becoming littered with aches, night sweats, nausea and others of the fallen, but the cheering voices and sounding prayers support the resistance from all around, and the enemy has none.