There are many small joys in life if we just stop to recognize them. We
spent time yesterday with a dear and much younger friend who is undergoing
intense treatment for a relatively rare cancer. About two months ago she
underwent what is often referred to as a “transplant,” a short-hand name for
“high dose chemotherapy and stem cell transplantation.” The drug regimen used is
so toxic that, in addition to the cancer cells, it essentially demolishes the
patient’s immune system, without which survival is virtually impossible. This
procedure is the ultimate assault on the cancer but there are no Google Maps to
tell it where to go, so it has the potential to affect everything: the mouth,
skin, hair, taste buds, fingers and toes…no part of the body is entirely safe
from the ravaging effects of these highly toxic medications. So the patient
then receives bone marrow cells, usually from another person whose bone marrow
adequately matches the patient’s. While the body is adjusting to the new cells
and allowing them to start doing their jobs, patients spend at least a month in
the hospital where their exposure to any pathogens can be as controlled as much
as possible.
While I will not say it was a cake walk, my treatment was less intense. Instead
of being completely out of commission for an entire month straight, I spent the
equivalent of nearly two months in the hospital during a six month period, but
even looking back on my worst days I realize that things could have gone much
worse.
With all that behind me, it is amazing how the memories really do start to
fade. Now that she can receive visitors (without getting too close), we
prepared a meal and went to see her and her devoted father who has been her
caregiver over these long months. As we usually try to do, we brought along a
meal. I made a quiche with spinach and cheese, some rice, and a salad, and we
threw in a container of Haagen Dasz raspberry sorbet for dessert (that one was
my idea, because I remember how yummy that tasted). Can you catch the mistake
in the menu? How could I have forgotten this? That pesky salad, with the fancy
mache lettuce Barry picked up at one of the specialty groceries. But of course
it is not possible to adequately wash salad vegetables to make them edible for
anyone with a severely weakened immune system, so they must be shunned
following the transplant, along with a variety of other foods that interact
with some drugs.
I was so embarrassed! If there is a shining light at the end of this story,
it is that I am far enough past that part of the chemotherapy experience for such
restrictions to have completely slipped my mind. All I wish for our young
friend is that one day she makes a similar mistake. Meanwhile, I hope her
father enjoyed all that salad!
I am not quite sure how I found this video a couple of weeks ago. I have
tried a number of times to find something to say about it, although it speaks
loudly for itself. Then, as I was writing about our friend, thinking about the
beautiful smile she has on her face each time we see her, this video popped
into my mind. It would be easy for her to feel that it is a quite ugly world
that she is seeing all too clearly. But instead, she is able to focus on the
good things that are still a part of her life, and maintain her hopes for the
future. So rather than us helping
her, she is helping us! It never hurts to take a moment
each day to focus on all the good in our lives before we start kvetching
about the imperfections!
Love,
Rebecca
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