Here is the irony. Since I was a child, after a traumatic accident which I will tell you about in a minute, I developed a reaction of passing out anytime I saw blood. Now, I am an adult with blood cancer.
*If you are squeamish, you may want to skip this next part.
If you know me... really well, you know that as a child I had a traumatic accident where I cut my hand wide open on a curtain hook. I was about 7 years old, my sister and I were jumping up and down on my bed (we were not allowed to jump on the beds) throwing around a doll. My mom had recently taken curtains down, but had not removed the hooks yet, oh yes, you know where this is going. Of course, she was not thinking I was going to jump up and down on the bed (since we were not permitted) and then fall into the wall and run my hand along it catching it on the curtain hook. The hook ripped the palm of my hand, starting at my wrist, wide open. It opened up so quickly that the blood came out dark first before it hit the oxygen and turned blood red (even telling this story in written format is hard for me and I am sure many of you are cringing). My parents came flying up the stairs, rushed me to the hospital, and as they wheeled me to the ER, I remember them asking me what color stitches I wanted. I do not recall the color I picked, but I ended up with 98 stitches in my hand and a trauma induced reaction to blood for the rest of my life.
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| blurry picture with my best friend, Brian Gates, after I got my stitches |
Initially, if I saw blood, it would cause me to panic and pass out. For the next 40+ years I struggled when I saw blood. There was the time in a doctor's office when Dana had her finger pricked (remember when they did that) and a small band-aid put on. We were told to go to the waiting room while my mom talked to the doctor. My mom said to Dana, "whatever you do - do not show your sister your finger." So, naturally, when we got into the waiting room, she showed me her finger! I looked at it, stood up in a panic and ran head first into the waiting room door before passing out.
Later, when I shared the story with friends, they decided to test me by periodically showing me their bloody cuts to see if I would pass out. I often did.
When I became a teacher, I would tell my sixth graders "if you cut yourself, do not come to me, run to the nearest adult because I will not be able to help you."
I am going to be 55 in a few days and I still struggle sometimes when I cut myself and I call my sister to either talk me through putting a band-aid on or having her come over to help.
Then about a month ago, it hit me. How fucking ironic is it that the girl who passes out from blood, gets blood cancer!?
Because I have blood cancer, for the past two years I have had to really get up close and personal with all things BLOOD. I have had to learn all about blood and figure out blood counts, and how cancer attacks my red and white blood cells. I have had to get blood drawn weekly for one year of the last two, and then every 8 weeks, for the other year - that is a lot of blood! In August, in preparation for the stem cell transplant (the harvesting part), I will get hooked up to a machine for 4 hours at a time that will take blood out of one side of my body, have it go through a machine to pull out my stem cells, and then travel back into my body on the other side... lord help me.
For now, I will focus on all the good things my blood is doing for me (keeping me alive), and I will avoid accidentally cutting myself (especially since my platelets are low) and know that if nothing else, these past two years have made me face one of my biggest fears - and I can actually say that now I can even look at my name on the tubes of blood that they take from me every Monday, Bloody, Monday!
On a side note: I have had a draft of this post sitting here for the last few weeks, so this morning when I saw Alanis Morissette singing "Ironic" on the Today Show, I saw that as a sign to finish writing it. It's been 25 years since she released the album, Jagged Little Pill - #ironic
