All summer long I was fighting off an illness, that if left untreated would have drastically shortened my life. I was on a strick painfull, anemic causing treatment, that had me in a bed, in a room, alone, for three months straight. During this time besides watching ten seasons of Dallas and the whole series' of Stargate SG1, and Universe, I often spent the day staring at the wall and lots of vomiting.
I also came to the conclusion after the first 30 days that I couldn't take it any more and I knew I had to press on. My doctor warned me that the affects from this treatment have caused such depression in his patients that some have committed suicide or at least attempted too.
"I could never be one of those people", or so I thought.
After the first 30 days I understood exactly what he meant. Being alone in the same room for more than 7 days for me feels like a jail cell. So after 30 days in the same room and being to weak to go anywhere I was beyond cabin fever.
I started to believe that this weakness, that the pain I had to go through, that the poison I had to put in my body, would never end. Think about chemotherapy. If you ever had to watch some one fight for their life, their need to live, fight to come back from a place that is dark and lonely and close to the end, than you may have a glimpse of what I'm describing.
Hopelessness was setting in and I was holding on to one thought, "I know that I have felt that my best life is better than this, and even though I don't feel it now, I know it is possible"
It's fall now and the treatment is over.
I'm 100% cured even after stopping the treatment 3 months early because I just couldn't live a life where the only voice besides mine came from the flat screen.
I couldn't live a life of throwing up constantly even though I haven't eaten all day.
I couldn't live anymore with thoughts of hopelessness, with thoughts of suicide lingering about.
I'm cured, I'm alive and I do thank God and appreciate my life, but this appreciation didn't come so easily. Even though I've been off treatment for almost two months, there have been lingering side affects. The depression is not as bad as it was but I'm no where near as that zest for life for what the future holds as I use to be.
I must admit everyday I find that I'm more grateful than the last.
But it took an event to jolt me back into the realization that life is worth living.
I spent the night with my best friend and her son, whom I lived with for the first 5 years of his life, (hes now 10) and around 3am, Gunshots!
I woke up thinking it was a dream, but the loud POP and POWs were not stopping at all, in fact, the noise was getting louder and louder, closer and closer, we all huddled together on the floor incase any bullets came through the window and then the noise just stopped, but the silence was deafening.
I was in complete shock, I mean living in the bronx for years I've heard a gun go off once or twice, but it never sounded as if it was happening less than 100 feet from where I was sleeping, and this sounded even closer than that.
After about 10 minutes we were still on the floor and just as we were about to get up we heard about ten minutes of none stop shooting, bullets hitting brick, louder and louder as the the shooting went on.
Ten minutes is more than enough time in this situation to realize how valuable life is, even if its as "Dramatic" as my ex would say, as mine. (If I didn't live it, I wouldn't believe it lol)
It took seconds for me to know that even if I don't feel that drive for life, there could be no gift as precious as life.
I was with the closest people in my life in New York, and I prayed that we get through this, and that I want to live, and deal with the fact that it was a hard year, and deal with the feelings that may not be any where close to joy, but as Ms. Jackson if your nasty says,
"Sometimes, you have to experience the pain to get to the joy"
And so I sit here today, healthy, alive, and ready to keep on keepen on!,
Appreciating the gift of life, appreciating my friends and family who's support has help me feel beter and better day by day. I even appreciate lesson's learned from mistakes that I've made and the things I've lost from making them, because it's all brought me to this point here,
and that is the knowledge that life may not always be a pint of Ben and Jerry's Coffee Toffe Crunch (mmmmm my favorite) but there will be many pints in my future as long as I am here to enjoy them, and if you know me you know that I love love love Ben and Jerry (a little too much)
I think I feel a smile coming on! Yep there it is!
