It’s 2016! Hello to Posts on the 6’s

Happy Happy New Year Everyone!

1.6.16
Hello number 6
2016 brings me to 6 official years of battling Myeloma. 6 years.
6 + 6 = 12
Yep! 12 months of posts on the 6’s coming. These number correlations in my life never cease to amuse and amaze me!! And how ’bout that 6 in my age too.

It’s Wednesday 1.6.16 and already 2016 has started out dramatically and symbolically for me. Monday, just after the New Year’s holiday weekend (not that I did anything remarkable), I had my 6th, yes sixth!, Bone Marrow Biopsy. Ugh and Ouch. What a way to begin the new year right?! I have a love/hate relationship with BMB’s, like all cancer patients do. They are incredibly painful, yet they are so incredibly informative about our “exact” cancer status. So yes, I brave up, shut up and just do it. I often think about “pre-gaming” with pain meds, or asking for “knock out” drugs, but then I just breathe deep and go with it. I’m so tired of being STRONG, but so used to it. Just my nature. No choice.

So at 1:30ish I had the procedure done. Yes my kind doctor numbed my lower hip area as much as she could, and continued to, as I felt incredible pain. She was swift and accurate and calmly talked me through her every move, which I greatly appreciated! My two nurses assisting her were wonderful and caring. The pain, the drilling feeling, the pounding feeling, the coring/cutting into the bone feeling,- it really hurts. I can’t accurately describe it. Bone pain is different than any other pain. It’s truly amazing what one can “get used to”…

BMB’s are always just so dang symbolic for me. They remind me I really do have cancer. They remind me and confirm to me, that I am sick. They remind me how out of control I am of my body, my life, my situation, my body’s bio-chemistry, and my options. I don’t cry much over my diagnosis, or my life’s circumstances, or my status. But I do cry during this procedure as it’s just so dang symbolic! I cry at the pain. I cry at at the “why”. I cry because I can’t believe what my life has come to. Then I take deep breaths, breathe deeply, talk my self silently through it, bite my lip, brave up and it’s over. I wipe my tears away, and move forward. I thank all of them for their professionalism, kindness an caring. And then I’m off to blood tests before my 2016 Kyprolis infusions. Boom. Bam. Boom. Bam. You’re a cancer patient Julie. This Is Your Life.

I walk the hall to the blood test lab. I’ve just had a frikn Bone Marrow Biopsy. I hurt. I hurt mentally. I hurt physically. I walk the hallway to the blood test lab. My diagnosis, my procedure, invisible. I smile. I nod. I have shoulder length blonde hair now. I wear make up. I look “normal”. No one knows my story. I don’t know their stories. I have a medical ID bracelet on. My diagnosis, invisible. No one knows what I just endured. No one knows I have terminal incurable myeloma cancer. I smile. I walk into the blood draw lab. I offer my arms to the needle vampire. I see my burgundy blood. I visualize the cancer cells in my blood, in the vile. I wonder what story my blood will tell today. I walk the hallway back to Hematology Oncology. I chit chat with the nurses, I smile, I thank them. I suppress my feelings. I take my seat in an infusion chair. I look around me. Every chair has a cancer patient. Patient patients hooked up to IV’s receiving dangerous chemicals that are so ironically life saving. Life extending. Death preventing. I’m sore. I hurt. I smile. I “fake it, til I make it”. First Kyprolis infusion of 2016. I love you Kyprolis. You ARE saving my life! My medical team is saving my life. They are all amazing, and I appreciate them so very much! Hook up. Suck it up. Smile. Grateful. Appreciative. Shocked. How’d it come to this. But I am here. I had yesterday, I have today, I hope for tomorrow!