Perspective

Today was my second to last treatment, I can’t tell you how good that feels.  One more left, only one – it seems so close now.  I know I still have a long road ahead with side effects, surgeries, and follow-up checks, but right now the light is glowing bright.

But rather than write my typical blog whining about the endless side effects that keep getting dumped in my lap, I had a dose of reality and perspective given to me during treatment.

If I haven’t described the treatment room before, let me now.  My biggest complaint is a lack of privacy for something that seems so personal.  There are 14 chairs in a large circle.  I can understand in one respect why it is set up that way – the nurses can sit in the middle and watch all of us.  If we desire or need privacy there is a curtain that can be pulled around.  But it is a sterile open room where you can hear everyone’s conversations and see most of the other people in the room (at least the folks in the half you are sitting in).  And the worst part in my mind is if you are in the waiting room/lobby, you can look straight back and see some of the patients.

So today I’m on the home stretch of my treatments.  During the process it isn’t bad, it’s the days following that everything starts to crumble.  So I was enjoying the fact that I was down to the last 30 minutes of my second to last day.  This is when I noticed a doctor come in, the nurses started to close people’s curtains, and I could hear hurried conversation.  By this time Brent was back with me and he could get up and look around. An older gentleman catty corner from me had stopped breathing.  Over the course of the 30 minutes that I had remaining the EMTs, doctors and nurses attempted to resuscitate him. I could hear them giving him a shot to start his heart, doing CPR, trying to get him to start breathing.  They weren’t successful.  In that room where all of us are fighting for our lives, one person lost.  Yes, I cried, I still am teary eyed. Did I know him? No, I honestly never even saw him sitting there (Brent did), but he was there just like me, fighting to have a longer life, a healthier life.  His wife was there with him.  His daughter. The doctor had to break the news to them that they brought their husband/father in to give him drugs to hopefully help and they were too late, they would be leaving without him. It shocks you in to how serious what we’re all going through really is. So today I’m not going to whine about bills, side effects, missed work, missed vacations.  Today I’m going to be grateful that I’m still fighting, and I’m not giving up.  I’ve got one more left.  The surgeries will be next but they’ll go by fast too.  I’m going to be strong.

So as I wrap up this writing I thought of all the things I want to do on my drive home tonight.  Granted to do them I need to replenish my leave and bank account but there is so much I want to see and do.  The bucket list has started in my mind.  Here are just a few of the things I want to do:

• Do a Portland and Seattle loop with Brent to see my friend Halle and her partner, enjoy the quirkiness of Portland, and gorge on seafood at Pike’s Place in Seattle
• Go to Nashville to listen to live music, make it a fun trip with my sister-in-law and brother-in-law if they’re game
• Visit New Orleans (where I haven’t been post-Katrina) and eat a beignet again, have Brent enjoy one, listen to some good live jazz (see if my brother and nephew would want to join in!), do some fun swamp tours so Brent can see alligators
• Shoot an elk in Idaho (I’ve shot elk just not in this dang state where I now reside)
• Get to Georgetown Lake and back to Philipsburg to go trail riding with my good friends Jenny and Jack, camping and telling silly stories over a campfire (put that in your calender for next summer Jenny!!!)
• Visit another continent – I would be game to go to any of them, just gotta figure out which one to go to first!
• Go to Mexico with Joz and Sean so Brent and I can go fishing and I can enjoy some beach time during the grey months of winter
• Meet my newest granddaughters (there will be a third by tomorrow it sounds like!!!)
• Take an Amtrak trip with a sleeper car across the country

There is a lot more, but for now you can see where my priorities lay.  Travel, friends and family! I’m not giving up, I’m not giving in.  I want to be the old ladies sitting at the front car of the roller coaster, hands in the air, skirts flying up, enjoying the moment!