Jan. 30, 2009

Turns out that ridding your neighborhood of the local Vampire and ridding a body of the disease that turned you into one, are pretty much the same.
With the local Vampire you simply drive a stake through its heart.
With an MDS patient you start by driving a pic-line into an arm.
Welcome to my first full day of Transplant.

Maybe- just maybe- it's not as bad as I've made it sound. But it's not something you wake up in the morning looking forward to with a 'Gee, I can hardly wait to get started' attitude.
Unless you're a glutton for punishment. Or facing the fact that after 17 years of praying for the next new thing and fighting your insurance company for virtually every on label , off label and experimental drug that's come along- you are out of options.

Because even with the hope of a cure -or at least a long remission- riding on every second of the next 100 days.Even with the professional, charming and extremely skilled doctors and nurses and a hospital campus that resembles a luxury spa. Deep in your soul you know you've been found guilty of being sick and sentenced to an undetermined term of hard labor.
By the end of the first day you've been sent to a well-furnished, sun-filled isolation cell.
The rules of detention have been carefully explained. And you've listened intently because you know that any infraction of these rules can lead to the most extreme of consequences.

You look at the lines connecting you to the 4,5,6 or seven bags hanging on a pole and dripping god knows what into your arms. You're told that at 11:30 that night you'll have a bag of mustard gas derivative pumped into your body...and you can't help it. Deep in your conscious you hear Susan Sarandon's voice is whispering in your ear and picture Sean Penn taking that long, last walk.
And then you remember that you've fought too long and worked too hard to let fear win out. At least for today.
If fate is intend on putting a stake through your heart, it's going to have to run awfully fast to catch you.