Apologies for taking time with this. Time kind of ground to a halt yesterday. Nothing more serious than it already is, but I wasn't good for much yesterday...unless they were having a laying-around-moaning contest on the Upper East Side. THAT I woulda won hands down.
On to your generosity. I have been meaning to address this since the first response to my initial email. So many of you have asked what you could do. From the littlest to the biggest things. Generosity across the board.
I am not rested or comfortable enough to say this well enough: those of you who have offered of yourselves deserve the best writing, the best expression, I can muster. Sadly, for now, this is it. Suffice to say that I am repeatedly moved, humbled, and given strength from your requests to help; from your willingness to give of yourselves.
People have asked about blood, about marrow, about food, about visits, about just about everything.
For now, please know that the simple facts of your offers are gifts to me. Gifts I am already using: an upwelling of emotion when I get a email, or N leans over to tell me someone passed on a good thought. Or when family arrive with news or tidbits.
Visits are pretty off limits right now. I am in a very shaky state, on purpose: the Drs need to reduce my own capacity to fight disease to the barest minimum so they can fight the cancer. Then--they promise--they'll build me back up. Visits wold be more risk than they would be worth.
I am also sort of like a dog, as many of you know: I kinda just want to sit in the corner and lick this wound until I can bound back out into the daylight and hump the world's leg.
But I am being well-cared-for. N rarely if ever leaves my side, slipping home for an hour or two when she can--sometimes a couple days apart--to swap out clothes, handle mail and the like, do everything the two of us used to do in a busy life.
In fact, people may want to not mail us stuff. We're not home, and dealing with packages just adds to the bustle right now.
N is across from me in her cot when I sleep and when I get up. I have come to terms with the sensations this causes in me--a thunderhead of gratitude and a wash of sorrow at stealing some of her time with mine. But that is what we do for each other, and I am well-cared-for. I am lucky.
And I am also in one of the best hospitals. I know and appreciate that people want to hoard their bodily fluids for me--an oddly endearing gesture--but they get me platelets and blood and the like whenever I need it. And if I need marrow or cord-blood or something icky like that down the line, there are international registries they will pull from.
So I would ask that, if you are moved to move, to help me in any way, simply get in line and be part of the giving. I learned at my mother's vein to give blood from a young age, and likely will not be allowed to do so any more, or at least not for a while. So that's a pint every three months out of the total someone could make up for me.
Get on the donor registration rolls. Especially if you are of color--people of color are underrepresented in the marrow registries, apparently.
But if you want to hit a little closer to home for me, give to The Red Devils.
http://www.the-red-devils.org/
Let me try and make this as clear as I can: I do not know that I would survive this alone.
To imagine going through what I have gone through so far--and it is far from over--without the support I have at my side and nearby. To imagine hanging my head at the tenth straight hour of nausea. To imagine being in this room, in this state, and not having anyone here to help. It is shattering. This paragraph has taken ten minutes because I have to keep stopping to cry. Granted, I'm on more steroids than a Yankee third-basemen, but still.
The Red Devils was started by two women who had support networks but saw how bereft life with cancer was without them. The Red Devils try in their little way to be a pal, a husband, a driver, a cook, to people facing something very similar to what I am facing. The Red Devils supports. And without support, I fear for where I would be right now.
http://www.the-red-devils.org/
I have it. Others don't. So if you feel the need to give, give there.
If the fact that The Red Devils is Maryland-based seems too far off for you and you are still driven, call a lovely woman named Jan at The Red Devils and see if you can start something here, or there, or wherever you are.
http://www.the-red-devils.org/
Your caring for me enough to ask what I need weighs a thousand mountains of good to me right now. It is helping me get through. And maybe it can help others, too. For even that possibility, N and I thank you.
I promise I'll try t be funnier next time.
