Lose the Label
A Student Activist Community

posted by jakethorn on July 9, 2008 - 7:51pm

Yesterday was shit, but huge good news today… it turns out that my little brother Wayne is a bone marrow match. This is incredibly important. It means that there’s something to aim for after the rounds of chemo. Something to hope for. It’s not just one long, blind path anymore. There are still a lot of unknowns and pitfalls ahead, but there’s at least this one point I can anchor my outlook on, like a marker to aim for.

In the meantime, I’m continuing with the treatment. I’m getting pumped with chemicals as I type, actually. I threw up this morning from nausea. The ulcerative colitis is still raging and I’m losing a lot of blood. It wakes me up at least 4 or 5 times a night. Usually I'm sweating and have to drag my machine over to the bathroom, always in the dark because when I turn on the light I can't get back to sleep. No matter what, there are more cruel, cruel months ahead.

The chemotherapy cocktail I’m doing this time is designed to be given more frequently than the other two I’ve done (“CHOP” and “HYPERCVAD”). “ICE” is given every two weeks instead of three or four. The idea is that since I have a more aggressive form of lymphoma, it makes sense to hit it back more often. What that means for my prospects of getting home for a visit home remains to be seen, but I’m skeptical. The doctors tell me I might get out this weekend but I doubt it. That promise has been broken far too many times for me to believe it anymore.

But that’s not what today’s about. Today is the incredibly positive news that I’m not a hopeless case, that there’s something to aim for, that this isn’t going to go on forever. It’s been a tremendous lift when I really needed it.