This is a special week.
There is something happening at 3:30 in Ann Arbor on Saturday that I won't pretend I haven't had circled on my calendar for a while.
I won't claim I'm not excited or that I won't be glued to the TV.
I can't say I won't be ecstatic or furious around 7pm Saturday depending on the result.
It means something to me and to my family to be a Spartan. It's how I grew up. It's part of my identity. This game matters.
I could talk about all the Harbaugh hype and the disrespect Michigan State is being hit with all over the country from national media. The arrogance of many UofM fans.
I could write many blog posts about the game.
But, and I almost can't believe I'm saying this:
This year, it's just a game.
I'll still care. I can't ignore it or not be effected by it, but there are some other things going on here.
The Michigan game, for the rest of my life, will be linked to the loss of one of my best friends, Marc Simon.
 |
| My Dad and Marc at a friends wedding
It's not the date. It's the game.
He passed the Friday night before a home game against Michigan. We were all together. I was with him less than an hour before it happened.
I've written about that night and about Marc on here before. A similar post before last years game is actually the most viewed post I've ever written.
Marc was as full of life as anyone I've ever met.
He was loud and opinionated and loud and animated. And loud.
I loved the guy. We all did. We all do.
I wrote a year ago that on days like this coming Saturday, I miss him the most. For many reasons, but none more so than this:
Those days are far too quiet. It's when I notice the lack of his presence most.
Death is so final. Abrupt.
The contrast between life, surviving, and death is wild. One year can feel like ten. One is gone in an instant.
There's another anniversary on Saturday.
October 17th is a year since I started Chemotherapy in Ann Arbor and started this blog. 196 posts in 365 days.
That's a lot of blowing up your newsfeeds, so, sorry about that.
The past year has felt like ten.
I don't know if I can put how I feel about this past year into words, let alone any kind of organized thought. It's been full of small triumphs. Big setbacks.
It's been full of great friends. My amazing family. Fell in love with a girl.
It's been easy at times. I've played a lot of golf. Done some amazing things.
Started something (this blog) that took off in a way I never could have imagined.
It's been hard at times. I've never felt as sick. Never had a mental challenge like this. Never felt, at times, as angry and frustrated and, admittedly, hopeless as I have in the past year.
It's been scary. Not a lot to add here--Cancer and the threat of what it can delivery is scary.
It's been exhilarating. On good days, and on days when I allow myself to step back and understand what's really happening--that I am surviving cancer--how can I not be thrilled?
How lucky am I?
It's been everything. And nothing.
Everything, because I've run the gamut of every possible thought and emotion a person can have in the span of a year. So have my friends and family and the woman who loves me, I'm sure.
Everything, because I'm still here.
Nothing, because I'm not done yet. It's still not over.
Many trips to Ann Arbor remain for me.
I'll wear my green and white every time--but it's a little harder to hate a place when they are saving your life and treating you like the most important person in the world.
For a few hours on Saturday afternoon, I'll hate the guys in Maize and Blue. It's a game.
It's fun.
Before 3:30 and after 7, I'll be loving the people who work in their health system who have made it their job to make sure I enjoy many of these gamedays to come.
I'll be missing my friend Marc Simon and Becca Sernick.
I'll be thankful for all that's happened in the last year that delivered me to now.
I'll have an eye on what lays ahead of me in the years to come.
Many, many years.
Still, between 3:30 and 7...
 
pound green pound.
LET'S GO.
Beneath is the first blog post I wrote after my first day of Chemo, a year ago this coming Saturday. I enjoy reading it from time to time. I had no idea what I was getting into, but I had an attitude then that I think is useful to find again when I let myself slip up.
Chemo, Day #1, Cycle #1
Tuesday, October 17, 2014
12:30 PM
University of Michigan Cancer Center, Ann Arbor, MI.
Today was wild. Not sure I can find a more effective way to describe it.
I woke up, tried to turn myself into the same weird, antisocial, pretending-to-be-focused-to-compensate-for-being-terrified zombie that I tried to before I went in for surgery, and went along for the ride. It was an incredibly unique experience.
When focused on specifically what is happening to yourself, it's difficult to get a handle on the gravity of the situation. I tried to stay locked in to my little world. The infusion atrium, the noises and smells, the room I can carry my IV to for coffee and snacks, my chair, my tv and my computer playing the newest episode of Homeland, which I didn't hear a single word of. I spent time Thinking of the kind of day my Dad is having--his second loved one, starting this journey, and him knowing the worst details of how the last one ended. The meds, waiting to be infused, looking more like Kool-Aid than a toxic killing machine of both good and bad cells.
But while semi-enjoying life in my semi-comfortable, insulated bubble, I took a look over my left shoulder, and part of me wishes I hadn't.
The man in the chair to my left was at least 70, had a large portion of his jaw missing, and a handful of visible lesions all over his body. I took my headphones off to listen to him speak to the doctor. Long story short, this was less about treating his ailments, than preserving life.
I look further past him to the left. There's a man no younger than 80 on his chair, fully reclined, sleeping while his wife was gently rubbing his arm. I don't know any details of his diagnosis, but common sense, and the look on his wife's face told me it looked as if his time here was short as well.
Fuck.
Headphones back on. Go back to homeland. Maybe change it to something more upbeat. Just don't look to the right.
Looked to the right at a 40-45 year old woman, with her teenage daughter with her. The woman had a double mastectomy. She was incredibly thin. Her lips were very chapped and it looked like a handful of fingernails had fallen off. Her kid typed away on her cell phone, but I watched as the woman kept shifting positions in the recliner, trying to find a pain-free position.
She looked a ton like I remember my mom when I was 18. A forced, faint smile to her daughter. She must've told a corny joke, because the girl smirked and rolled her eyes. I suppose that's when it hit me; that in my insulated little world, I could tell myself I didn't really belong here. This is a blip, and it may very well turn out to be that for me, but that I needed to stop pretending.
I grabbed my portable IV and walked to the bathroom labeled "For Chemo Patient's Only." Had a long look in the mirror, couple deep breaths, a brief moment of "why me," a couple tears, a "stop crying, you punk," one last deep breath, and back out we go.
Decided to take a long walk around.
This room is full of dying people. People in pain. People trying just to extend their life. Loved ones with them. Optimism. Flowers.
My treatment began, it went relatively smoothly, and I felt/feel like shit. I've been injected with a toxic time bomb, and now I'm just along for the ride. That's an unsettling feeling. But I couldn't really focus on that while in that infusion atrium.
I spent the rest of the time struggling with what I had learned today in Ann Arbor.
My treatment had begun, and this wasn't some mistake. The people around me in there may be at different stages, different cancers, different treatments, different ages…but I'm not special.
I belong there too.
That's enough for day one. Probably reads as a bit overly dramatic. But I'll never forget today.
I needed today, for obvious health reasons. I think I needed it for something else as well. I think, now, I'm ready to go.
Time will tell. |
No comments:
Post a Comment