Antici.........pation

Excuse me for the Rocky Horror reference, gotta show some Frankenfurter love. That great pause in the middle of that word seems to be exactly how I feel right now. A great pause between two things.

By this time tomorrow night my husband (sweet, sweet husband), dad and I will be safely on the ground in Houston and preparing ourselves for the mindbendingly important day that comes on Tuesday. We will finally meet the transplant doctor and his team and (waiiiiittt for it......) find out if I have a tissue match. This is so crucial to the timing of this transplant as well as the projected outcome. If E or J (the sibs, E for the sis and J for the bro, keepin' it on the DL) is a match, that means that I will receive my transplant sooner than if one of them weren't a match. It also increases my survival rate and lowers the risk of complication. Yeah, see what I mean by huge? The fact that they both agreed to be tested and to do this for me is so meaningful in so many ways that I lack the ability to explain what I feel in my heart. They have said yes to giving me a chance at living for another 50 (60, 70...!) years. The words 'thank you' don't really suffice in this situation. I will put them out into the blogosphere anyway: Thank you, E and J. You are both pretty amazing.

The timing of this transplant situation couldn't be more bizarre. We knew from the start that transplant would be a possibility, however, had the impression (hope? prayer?) that it would not occur for a decade or so. It's a difficult pill to swallow (pun intended) to find it so close at hand.

The next couple of paragraphs may not make a whole lot of sense, it is mostly a stream of consiousness. A few things I wanted to share but, well, probably aren't very cohesive. My apologies.

This weekend marked the second of four weekends in an indepth Anusara Yoga inspired training that is being taught by my vibrant and deeply generous teacher Justicia Friese. For many reasons this training is bittersweet (mostly sweet, though). I will spare you the philosophical mumbojumbo, but basically, the universe works in mysterious ways. Yoga has been a source of healing and refuge for me for several years, and now more than ever. Going so deep into my practice at a time when I am wrestling with the prospect of not having a physical practice for awhile, is a complete mindfuck (forgive the term, it fits). There have been moments in my asana (yoga pose) practice lately that have been huge milestones for me.  There have been moments of intense sadness and emotion as well. Both, being related of course, have served to nourish me in strikingly similar ways. The idea of "my body won't ever do that. I just can't" is one that I held very closely (my 'story') for so long, that when all of the sudden, my body COULD do "that", I quite literally, overflowed.  It's that great "what the hell comes next" moment. It's amazing how the idea of pretzeling your legs can so closely relate to the idea of having cancer (yeah, OK Laura). Both seem impossible. But when they happen, you deal. It's there, it happened, now what. Pretzeling your legs, of course, is something you work for, cancer, not so much. However, the emotional overload that can happen when something you (let's be real here) feared, happens, can bring up some serious stuff.


I will be honest and say that I did not actually think I was ever going to have a bone marrow transplant. But I am. It's here, so now what. I am afraid. It's overwhelming, it's scary, it makes me angry. The anger isn't just for me of course, it's for my husband as well. I'm going to do the "it's not fair" thing here and say that it isn't fair to P (the hubby) to be saddled with this crap at 25. However, life isn't fair and fear and anger never helped anyone. It's like the legend Justicia shared in class this weekend (can be found here if you are interested). Sometimes, when you try too hard to slay your demons (fear, anger) , more just crop up. It's only when you take those demons in, let them nourish you, that the demons become something, well, less demonic. You just shift the energy rather than try to get rid of it. Maybe cancer is like that too? If you try to hard to make it go away, it finds a way around the treatment. Of course, cancer can be killed (slayed) by chemo, but the cells aren't all there is to cancer. There is the emotion too, an often overlooked but hugely important thing. By taking it in, feeling the fear and anger and then shifting that energy into living, I can make it through this. WE can make it through this. Maybe this is what I mean by coming to this experience in a yogic way.  A friend said to me this week that you don't need to physically do the asana to practice yoga. She was so right and so profound in that statement. I can only hope that I can live up to this and that it isn't just something I post on this blog. A new adventure, a new practice, a new question, right?

Finally, I really want to say how moved I am at the response I have received in starting this blog. Thank you for reading and THANK YOU for your support. It sounds so cheesy and cliched, however, I don't have words for what it means to read your comments and texts.

Will update, the BIG update, later this week.

Much love.