It's not often we make a life changing decision, knowing that it is a life changing decision. There are the big ones, like deciding to get married (or not), have kids (or not), or some total career change (changing jobs doesn't count). But most of the time, the events that dramatically change our lives are a result of some other smaller decision that at the time, did not seem that significant.
Many of us have those stories where, in retrospect, you realize a very minor thing totally changed the course of your life. Having peanut butter that one morning instead of plain toast lead to a crazy chain of events and now you're living in Sweden with two kids and a cow in the field.
My story, which I've told many times, has to do with deciding to hit the "Next Page" button on a job posting website instead of shutting down my computer, which I was already in the process of doing. I had already seen the 12/13 jobs posted (which of course all sucked) and decided to not bother checking out the last one that was bumped to the next page. I guess my need for thoroughness (or being anal retentive) superseded my tiredness so I clicked the link to see the last job. It sounded great, but the deadline to apply was exactly that day and it was already midnight. I decided to apply, got the job, and that's how I met Wayne. He started at the same company, on the same day, in the Toronto office.
Fast forward about 13 years later, and Wayne and I are making a very important life decision in a meeting room in the basement of the Tom Baker Cancer Centre, along with my brothers, my doctor and a nurse. It was really a non-decision, in that there really was only one choice. As I wrote in my last post, we were already heavily leaning towards the allogeneic stem cell transplant using my brother's stem cells. But still, I thought we might give some consideration to continuing on with chemo treatments in hopes that one of them puts the disease into long term remission. In a bit of shocker, my doctor told me she thought the prognosis of just continuing with chemo would give me about... a year. Obviously, not an acceptable option, and just hearing that really shook us all up.
We had just spent an hour listening to all the risks, statistics, complications and problems that can happen with an allo transplant. Some can be minor, some fatal. Some acute, some life-long. Some could be an annoyance, others might totally impact your quality of life. It was all quite terrifying to hear. Once the decision was made to move forward with it, my doctor said that I should "try not to be scared". Not all those terrible things are going to happen to everyone. I understand that they have to tell us all of those things for legal reasons, but still, all those risks and problems are real.
It was cloudy, rainy and gloomy when we left the hospital and we were all quietly trying to deal with our own thoughts and feelings. Mine were like a revolving door - being glad we we're moving forward, scared, excited about a potential cure, scared, feeling strong about beating this thing and oh yeah, did I mention scared? It was a tough day and think I spent most of it just trying not to be worried and terrified.
But the next day (yesterday) was bright and sunny and I felt way better about things. In fact, I'm back to thinking "let's get on with it". Part of it is my impatient nature, but a bigger part of it is not wanting to give the cancer a chance to come back. They originally had me scheduled to go on July 19th, but I asked to move it up sooner. They said the best they could do would be to move it up a week, because it has to be timed with my counts coming back up from my next GDP chemo treatment. They also need the time to have me run through a barrage of tests, including seeing their dentist, ophthalmologist etc. I will be so susceptible to infection that they need to find any possible source of trouble and deal with it before we start.
So July 12th is the big date. They estimate I'll be in the hospital for about 4 weeks, then very closely monitored for the next 3-6 months. I'm doing my best to be positive and believe that I will be ok. We've also decided to try the immunotherapy treatment from Baylor Medical Center in Houston, but that will be post-transplant and whenever I am able to travel.
Thanks again to everyone for your supportive emails and phone calls! I'll need all of your positive energy over the next several months - keep it coming!
