Daily.

Daily.

In the spirit of someone else (maybe I heard about it from the superhero, I can't remember), I'm going to post daily to this blog. For at least a month. I really don't have a good excuse for not posting in over a month, so what better way to discipline myself than to commit to posting every day. Well, my work's server classifies my blog as "weapons," so that's part of it. I'm being pulled in a thousand directions these days, but really, blogging is not a chore. It's not something I have to do. I do it because it makes me a better person to thumb through my own thoughts and weave them into real words. The daily post could almost be meditative.

Right now, my friend Michele is in the hospital, recovering from a bone marrow transplant. And I don't even think recovering is the right word for this fragile place. It's like a purgatory. Everything sucks for her, and we have no idea if it's even going to work. We have no idea if it will heal her or kill her.

I try to blame work sometimes for being a source of stress/time-suck in my life, but I can't help it. I can't sit at home and rest when there is still cancer out there to be cured. I can't just do nothing while Michele wants to rip out each tube stuck on her or in her. I sometimes laugh at myself and tell myself to wake up, it's not like I'm the one peering at cells through a microscope solving it all or making the treatments suck less. I just sit in a yellow office where I let plants die and papers pile up. But the truth is, I do know that I'm making a difference. I feel like I could list how much money I've raised, through the many amazing volunteers, that has gone directly towards making things suck less for people like Michele. And I guess I won't ever stop this work until it stops sucking completely.

There is a lot to be done.

Just under two years ago, Michele was diagnosed with stage 3B Hodgkin's lymphoma. The difference between stage 3B and stage 4 is that stage 3B doesn't require a bone marrow transplant. She was lucky. In June of this year, Michele had her 18 month check-up, and was happy and healthy. The summer swept past us, and soon it was September. We were all pulled into the conference room one Wednesday. Michele is in the hospital. She has leukemia. We were all struck by so much at once. Sadness, fear, and confusion. Wait, I thought she had lymphoma? Maybe he said it wrong right now. How can she be sick? Again? But it was leukemia. For someone her age, the treatment for her kind of lymphoma has a somewhat rare side effect of secondary cancers. The leukemia was that secondary cancer.

It breaks my heart that what saved Michele's life the first go around has put her right back where she started, only this time it just seems harder. It wasn't a question of whether she'd require a bone marrow transplant, just who and how soon. I can't even begin to imagine the loneliness and abandonment you'd feel going through cancer, much less if it happens to you twice. I can't wrap my brain around it.

The amazing part is that she is still our beautiful Michele. She wrote "I am healing" in sharpie on the chemotherapy port jutting from her chest, which makes me overflow with love and hope for her. She arranges all of the cards and posters in perfect zen-like symmetry. She says things like, "this room has better energy than the last one." About HOSPITAL ROOMS. She's not just a fighter, she is graceful. And you don't just want her to beat this, you absolutely need her to.

Right now, she's in ICU. She's battling complications from all the treatments, including problems with her oxygen. I don't even understand everything that's going on I do understand, though, that there is a lot more work to be done, and a lot more Micheles out there strugging in ways I can't comprehend. I dedicate this November of daily posts, daily meditations, to Michele. You can do it, my sweet little thing. You can do it.

Michele.

Michele.

Today, I found out that my friend and former LLS coworker Michele Larson has passed away. I told you about her a while ago, when it was totally unfair that she had developed a secondary cancer, leukemia, as a result of her treatment for her original lymphoma. Since that post, she has had not one, but two additional battles with cancer. Four total. Four. My heart and my stomach ache thinking about the struggles her body knew.

Here is a video of Michele (embedded below), interviewed for a program called "Understanding Cancer."



Maybe in that short clip you might be able to begin to see how beautiful, strong, calm, inspiring, remarkable, and creative she was. She's the kind of person that you would interrupt mid-conversation to tell them how great and cute they are. I had seen this video quite a few months ago when it was first published, and watching it again just now as I posted the video was really hard. Her family members used Michele's email account to send out the details for the services, and a simple "Michele" and this video link were still in her old signature file, along with a quote about faith and impossibleness. That too, was really hard to see.

But, god, you're supposed to be ready for these things, right? When someone is in her fourth battle with something that could very well have killed her the first time around (and almost did), shouldn't you expect her to lose her fight at some point? Shouldn't you be relieved and peaceful that her body is no longer feeling or sourcing her pain? I don't know, I just don't know. All bets are off when you're as young as Michele. All bets are off when you're my friend.

I just sat here for about 10 minutes staring at the screen trying to think of something moving and well-written to write here about Michele, but then it just made me feel so sick to my stomach, like I would be getting some artistic jollies off of her tragedy so I'm just going to leave it alone.

I am so sad. I miss her.

Fighter.

Fighter.

This afternoon, my friend Michele was transferred to the critical ICU and induced into a coma. Her lungs are 75% filled with fluid. As one of Michele's best friends found me to tell me the news, she looked at me and asked me, "She'll be fine, right? She'll beat this?" And for the first time, neither of us could chin-up and pretend we were just waiting it out anymore. It has always just felt like we had to sit still and be strong while she did her time with treatment, and then we'd have Normal Michele back again. I think it's the first time I've honestly been scared.

Later on, as thousands of illuminated balloons lit up the night around the racetrack, red balloons for people coming out in support, white balloons for survivors, and gold balloons for those who had lost a family member, I found myself completely overwhelmed. Standing alone at the edge of the track next to the standard-issue cover band, I broke down because I wanted Michele to be there. I missed her so much. I didn't even miss having her hang out with me - I just wanted to see her from across the way completely in her element and loving it.

It's not as simple as wanting her to hurry up and heal - I just want this to have not happened.

Home and dry.

Home and dry.

My coworker Michele is home. HOME! She is, obviously, doing much better after her harrowing experience in critical ICU. Now we just sort of wait-and-see some more, and hope for no more scares. She's still in the window of monitoring the stem cell transplant to see if it fully grafts (it is grafting right now!) and doesn't cause any graft vs. host problems. I can't wait to see her again.

I know this is wishful thinking, but I hope she never again has to see the inside of a hospital. Ever.