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.