16.08.2007.
You wake up on a folded hoodie (you have not been in hospitals before; you do not know that you can ask for a proper pillow)
Creep to the bathroom, trying not to wake the other patients
Hoping the machine pushing a stranger's blood into your veins doesn't make a noise (thank you)
Your family come to visit, your sister has got into the university she hoped for
The doctor comes with a green form for you to sign
A general anaesthetic (the first of countless)
A bone marrow aspirate
A lumbar puncture
"Diagnostic" is the reason
You wake up hours later, so hungry
Rice Krispies
A different doctor comes
He is new to you (he is in charge)
He takes you, your parents, your drip stand to the quietest room (the quiet rooms are not for good news)
He says the words that deafen you
We
found
leukaemia
cells
You cry for three days
And live in hospital for the next three years
To make you better, they have to poison you
Nurses in aprons
goggles
face masks
arm gauntlets
plastic gloves
to protect them from the drugs they are going to give you
(a sick person)
to kill the thing that's killing you
The only chance of a cure is to empty you
Change the DNA in the place all the cells are born
Your sister is a match
She takes drugs for ten days to boost her number of cells
They make her bones ache
Then she bleeds for two days
And they give it to you
Just a bag of cells
(a stem cell transplant is highly anti-climactic)
It works too well
The cancer doesn't notice anything is different
It comes back after four months (you notice a tumour growing on your face)
You have a four percent chance of surviving
You agree to try
(after some convincing)
And you spend the next ten years losing things
Your hair
All of it
Yes even that hair (you are so smooth)
Your nails
Your fertility
Your ability to tolerate light
Layers of your skin
The lining of your mouth
The enzymes in your stomach that allow you to digest anything
Your liver
Your second stem cell donor
Your ability to lift up your head
sit up
roll over
go to the toilet
without help
Your sanity
Three-quarters of your lung function
Three and a half stone
Friends you made along the way (bonds that no one else can understand and oh god I miss you so much)
Some of these things come back
Some of them are irretrievable
You grieve
For the parts of you that are gone
The life you thought you would have
The education
jobs
friends
lovers
children you will never have
And you let them go
You are lucky
You are a chimera
You are "unique in medical literature"
You are loved
You are alive
You have a purpose
You need nothing else.
