When I began this blog, I hoped (and feared) that the entries would eventually become predictable, dull and monotonous. "Check in to Hotel Hope. Get high doses of chemo. Go home for two weeks. Repeat." And I looked forward to the day when my entries would put readers to sleep ("Had another good day today") so that I could switch over to my "Open Mouth, Insert Fork" blog.
I wanted my story to be the safe, formulaic work of a hack, complete with a happy ending.
But my saga is beginning to be more like a Stephen King novel. Not in the pig's-blood-dumping-on-the-prom-queen way. In the unpredictable, sitting-at-the-keyboard, I-have-no-idea-where-this-novel-is-going style that I've read that King employs when writing one of his spine-tingling tales.
If I wrote fiction, I'm afraid I'd have to know the endng in advance and would use a detailed outline to make sure I got there. Uncertainty be damned!
But now I'm adapting to a high level of uncertainty and many unanswered questions. And I have no idea how this story is going to end.
Will my platelets rise sufficiently in one week? Will I need to endure another bone marrow biopsy as Dr. Forman suggested? Will I be able to continue Hyper CVAD at a reduced dosage? Will the reduced dosage and prolonged schedule be a big enough gun to deal with my blastic variety of mantle cell lymphoma? Will my bone marrow be able to pump out a sufficient quantity of stem cells for the autologous stem cell transplant? If not, is an allogeneic (donor) stem cell transplant the right decision? If so, will a family member be a match? If not, will I find a match on the national registry? Will I develop graft versus host disease, a common complication of donor transplants? Will I reach complete remission? If so, how long will I stay there?
I wish I could flip ahead, find out the answers to these questions and learn the ending. But I'm just going to have to take it one spine-tingling page at a time.
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