Second Chances

It's an odd thing to feel like you're already living a second chance. Your first chance, when you're young and naive and innocent, ends when you do something that could realistically render significant repercussions, possibly the end of your life. After that, if you think about it, it's like you were given a second chance. At least, that's the way I look at it.

Obviously, there isn't any rule or explanation regarding the number of chances each person gets. Like everything else, it's different for everyone. Some may never get a second chance; for them, it's all over at the first substantial mistake. Others may get chance after chance, never realizing or appreciating the fact that they're living on the edge and that it may eventually catch up with them. Some learn to change their ways after a certain experience serves as a wake-up call to start being more responsible. Some are determined to test their luck forever, with no consideration for those that may be hurt along the way.

Like I said, I feel like I'm on a second chance. I left the younger, more innocent version of myself somewhere in the distant past. I drove fast, and paid for it in speeding tickets, though I was never in a serious accident. I drove without a seat belt, and paid the state of New York for that as well. I drove after drinking, and while I never got caught, I put myself and my friends in danger. I went too far with girls I didn't know, and I've drunk past the point of remembrance and challenged my limits to the brink of alcohol poisoning.

One time, at the beginning of my senior year of college, my friend and I decided to take a couple of bicycles for a joy ride after each having a few drinks. It was exhilarating, liberating, and incontestably foolish, and our route eventually brought us to the top of a hill, overlooking a path, which ran to the left of four collections of wooden stairs, all leading down to a rickety wooden bridge laid across a small stream. Once at the top, we prepared to descend the path, but my friend stopped to say something and I swerved to avoid hitting him, which led me right into the stairs. I couldn't avoid them, so I tried to ride down them, which I did, and I swung back to the left to rejoin the path. At that point, my feet had lost the pedals, which kept on going, and I couldn't catch them again. I tried to make the bridge with a sharp maneuver at the end of the path, but I couldn't make the turn fast enough. The bike hit the front left panel of the bridge, as did my head, and I was thrown over the handlebars. My friend ran down the path to help me out of the brush in which I had landed (I barely missed landing in the creek), and when I stood up there was blood rushing from the gash on my head. To make a long story short, I missed losing an eye, or worse, by about a quarter of an inch. Thanks to the work of a talented plastic surgeon, three layers of stitches have left me with only a 1.5-inch long scar through my eyebrow.

After that night, I fought with depression for weeks. Needless to say, I felt lucky that the damage hadn't been worse. I felt as if I had been given a second chance.

I don't think there was anything I did, or any mistake I made that resulted in my getting cancer. There are other illnesses that can be acquired due to bad judgment, but it's safe to say that cancer isn't one of them. Still, cancer may be the most life-threatening of all the things I've mentioned. It requires the most work to fix it, takes the most time to eliminate, and has taken the greatest toll on my friends and family. If I'm lucky enough to get through it, I will most definitely feel like I've been given another second chance.

It would take me a few minutes to count up all of my second chances, so I don't know what number I'll be on if and when I beat this thing. And I don't want to stop doing exciting things, or having as much fun, but I know that it's time to start being more responsible. There has to come a time when people stop taking so many chances and start acting like adults. I know that after this experience, I want to make sure that my life goes on for a long time, and I don't want to throw it away by doing any of the stupid things I used to do.

I wonder how many more second chances I have left. Cats have nine lives, or so they say, but what's the expression for humans? Maybe "Humans have as many lives as they have, until they have none." But we never know when we have none left.

So, I'll probably calculate my risks a little bit more from now on than I have in the past. I have no way of knowing how many more second chances I have.

TGIF

I've been finding it pretty difficult to get myself out of bed recently. I attribute it to the principle of inertia; you know, a body in motion will stay in motion until acted upon by an outside force. And, conversely, a body at rest will stay at rest until I can force my lazy ass out of bed to do something. Besides, it's really hard to get my body to do just about anything, so I just stay in bed and pass the day in comfort.

The weekdays tend to get lonely, anyway. My parents work, my sister is away at school, and I'm sick and tired of television and video games. The other day I thought about reading a book, then thought better of it, and if I'm not feeling motivated to write, I can't just force the words out onto the page.

I've been telling myself I should get into reading for a while now, but the reality is I'm just not that interested. Sparknotes got me through high school, and I did what I had to do to get by in college, but reading has never really been fun for me. I've always said that I'd rather live my own life than read about someone else living theirs, which, come to think of it, would actually make right now an ideal time to start. I have appreciated a good book before, and probably could again, but if I start reading now, I'll be reading about someone who still has the opportunity to get out and live, which would no doubt make me jealous and angry, so I doubt I'd enjoy it very much. One of these days, I'll give it a try, I just don't know when.

I'm also getting fed up with people asking me how my day was. Sure, it's a caring notion, and under most circumstances I know that people appreciate being asked about their day. But for me, right now, it really just gets under my skin. It's an uneventful conversation, anyway, and I could simply do without it.

"How was your day?"

"Great. I rolled over. How was yours?"

I'm not so concerned with the back end of that interaction, either, since once again it's bound to involve someone else getting to do something more exciting than a successful bowel movement. And while I'll listen if they really want to tell me, unless it's especially interesting I'd rather be spared the frustration of wishing things were better.

I do realize how bitter I sound, and trust me, I'm exhausted just being inside my own head. If I could drown out my thoughts, I would, but it's an ability I have yet to master.

The weekends get a little easier, though, and at least today is Friday. I don't look forward to them quite as much as I did when I could go out, but it seems like people are overall less stressed and more available than they are during the week, for obvious reasons. Someone else is usually home, which is nice, and there's much better programming on t.v. during the afternoon, namely live football or basketball at this time of year.

During the weekend, it feels more ordinary to be lounging around, and less like I'm doing it because something's wrong. I know that I'm entitled to my weekday indolence, but it still feels better when it's the social norm.

So, Happy Friday! It isn't said enough, but today is a privelege. And for the next two days, we get to do the things we wish we could do all the time, like maybe nothing at all. Some may be more inspired, or able, than others, but they can keep it to themselves as far as I'm concerned.

Just kidding.

It's Hard to Say Goodbye

The other day, my doctor informed me that she will be leaving Columbia in order to assume a more prestigious position at another hospital in the city. Honestly, though the news was unanticipated and came as a shock to me, my initial reaction was to be happy for her. She has worked her entire life to get to where she is now, and I should be nothing but supportive of her achieving success. I've known her only a few short months, anyway, so it seems that it would be selfish of me to expect my agenda to compete with her lifelong dreams.

She won't actually be leaving Columbia for another month or so, but she did ask me to go with her to the new hospital soon after she makes the move. The new place is all the way downtown on the east side of the city, which is considerably more difficult for me to reach than is Columbia. In fact, the duration of the drive would likely double in time at the very least, making an already dizzying car ride even more difficult in both directions. When I need to come in for a meeting, or to have blood taken in advance of chemo, or when I'm coming in for chemo and subsequently leaving chemo, every car ride that already makes me all shook up inside would be even worse. And that's not even to mention those wonderful, though infrequent occasions when I have to go to the E.R. for some reason or another, in which case I'll probably be in a hurry, but inevitably at the mercy of the ever-unpredictable FDR Drive.

Then I have to consider my nurses at Columbia, who sent me a birthday card and gift, and always come to see me even if they're not on shift but notice that I'm around. Don't get me wrong, my doctor is without question the quarterback of this whole endeavor, and the reason I'm writing this in the first place is to express the loss I'm feeling due to the idea of her not being around. But once I'm checked into the hospital for treatment and my doctor has given her scripts and chemo orders, it's up to the nurses to carry out the plan, and I trust them fully. And, if you remember, they are the friendly faces I look forward to seeing to ease the transition from upright to bedridden and drug-infused.

The more I think about it, though, it's no easier to accept. My doctor has been a stabilizing force since those first, most fearful days when my diagnosis was a mystery and my entire future was in considerable doubt. At the risk of employing another hardly necessary analogy, she took the keys to the RV into which all of my family and friends packed themselves along with their panic and dreams of a miracle, and my doctor began to navigate us along the path that will hopefully lead us to the promised land of remission.

I don't doubt the credentials or ability of this new doctor I've been given to fulfill her responsibilities with regards to my treatment. Things just seem to be going so well right now, it's hard to imagine doing the rest of it without my doctor. When they're about to put me under for my eleventh and twelfth Bone Marrow Biopsies, I just wish it could be her telling me that she'll be there the whole time and that she'll still be there when I wake up.

I know that you can't really predict these things, and that you have to be ready to take advantage of great opportunities when they present themselves, but why does it have to be right now?

If my doctor leaves Columbia in a month, takes a few weeks to get her feet grounded in her new environment, and then asks me to join her there, I'll be at least two or three treatments ahead of where I am now, which leaves (hopefully) only a few remaining between me and the finish line. And at my hospital I know the routine; I know what to expect when I check in for chemo, and we humans are creatures of habit. I also know that at Columbia, the doctors work together, abandon their egos, and I'd like to believe that my doctor will remain relevant in my treatment until the very end.

I don't know how things are done over at the other hospital, though I know that after each chemo treatment I would have to walk a few blocks to some lodge where the amenities would be nicer than they are at the hospital, but the time it would take to get post-chemo hydration or transfusions hooked up again after a walk that sounds like it could be nothing but unpleasant after a day of chemo are not quite reassuring notions. Again, I just wish this weren't happening right now. But if it's not going to be me, then some other patient will have to deal with it, which isn't necessarily better, just easier for me.

At this point, I'm slightly more than cautiously optimistic that I can emerge victorious from this whole thing. Ideally, if and when that day comes, my doctor would be there to share in the joy with me and my family. I would pick her up, spin her around, and maybe we'd all go get a drink somewhere. I'm not saying she won't be there, either, or that her role in this process is finished, or even overly diminished, at least I sincerely hope not, but I have to be realistic about the fact that she probably isn't going to be around very much. Her input will arrive from a distance, and I'll welcome it, though I'll miss her reassuring smile, but that's the way it's going to be. And when this is over, I'll need a doctor for meetings and scans and maybe even the occasional Bone Marrow Biopsy, so you never really know what could happen.

People come and go from our lives, circumstances change when we least expect them to, and sometimes it's when we most want them to just stay the same for a little while longer. I know that these are things I've said before, and probably will again before my days are through, but it never seems to get any easier. Things around me are changing; people, the weather, and all I can do is try and hold onto any order and sanity I can get my hands on. I guess that's why I'll probably stick it out at Columbia, as long as my treatment continues to go well. But I'm going to miss her, that's for sure, and it'll be damn hard to say goodbye.