Breathing Once Again

Taking in the majesty of the Pacific.

I realize I’ve been missing from the blog world for a while, but to write, I need time, energy and focus and I have not had an ounce of any of those for the past two weeks. But I've gotten those things back and the stories of what I've been up to will follow. 

Though I've been remiss of those things, what I did have was a bout with pneumonia, a pleural effusion that made it very hard to breathe, a week straight of very high temperatures, soaking night sweats, and teeth chattering chills, several bags of blood, and another round of chemotherapy thrown in. I spent an overnight at Columbia Presbyterian in the Bronx and then another five-night hospital stint at Hartford Hospital home in Connecticut after making an Emergency Room entrance. I also had some life-affirming experiences at the San Francisco Writer’s Conference and a fantastic time exploring the City by the Bay and the California Coast.

Yesterday was the first day I was home since I left for Cali on Feb 13. After a week of vacation, Craig and I separated and I took a red eye right to NYC to clinic where my mom met me and my medical team could examine me and infuse my next treatment immediately in case this was Hodgkin gone wild. Today was the first day that I’ve felt like I’m on the other side of all of these infections. It feels good. But it has not been an easy go. These weeks have taken a real tough toll. We didn’t know what was going on for a while there, and that is a scary feeling. After much examination, imaging, blood tests, heart tests, monitoring and IV antibiotics all over the place, it was ultimately determined that I had a community acquired pneumonia in my left lung (damn sick people on planes) and developed a lot of fluid in the lining around that same lung which grew as an inflammatory and protective measure.

Three Years Later

How appropriate that today is the third anniversary of my cancer diagnosis: May 8, 2009, and I’ve spent it in the Emergency Room and now as an inpatient at Hartford Hospital – the hospital at which that diagnosis was discovered. This is certainly not where I thought I would be three years later. It’s frustrating. It’s defeating. It’s confusing. It’s angering. It’s exhausting. I’m doing my best to focus on the fact that I am still here, that I am still living my life despite what this persistent disease has tried (and failed) to take from me, but it’s hard to keep that focus. This year, more than past anniversaries I admit that I’m angry and resentful. The fact that I’m in the hospital on this day is just insult to injury.

Just last night I said to Craig that I am never going back to stay in a hospital and that he’d have to drug me up significantly to get me there and my mom was comforting me by saying that even though I was feeling so awful, at least I was able to heal in my own home. Well, to all of our surprise, here I am, and I won’t be released until they figure out what’s going on with me. It’s funny how a fever of 103 degrees, writhing chills and a morning full of vomiting quickly changed my tune on the Emergency Department visit. I nearly collapsed at its doors desperate for help to make me feel better. I also came uncomfortably close to vomiting on the triage nurse.