Helltembre

Wretched wretched horrible wretchedness.

It's funny how we completely disregard our bodies until our bodies make themselves known: a stumped toe, a cut finger, a head cold, auto-immune diseases with unfamiliar names.

I am keenly aware of the blood that flows beneath my skin. It has become synonymous with Threat. This is the insidious nature of auto-immune. Your body becomes your enemy.

The enemy that dwells within my body has a name. But the name means nothing. The name does not illuminate the enemy's origin nor map out its hidden fortress. The name does not tell me how to destroy the enemy. Unless I want to destroy myself.

And I suppose there comes a point at which anyone suffering the symptoms of an auto-immune disease decides to attack themselves, thinking that by attacking one's own body one might actually liberate one's self from the enemy dwelling there.

After a weekend in the hospital with an almost non-existent platelet count, the body part I choose to attack is my spleen.

I noticed the symptoms of a low platelet count: the increase in bruises, large patches of small red dots on my legs and feet. I knew after having missed one week of treatment that my count most likely had fallen. But I did not realize to what extent they had bottomed out. I called the nurses' desk of my hematologist / oncologist and suggested that I come in for a CBC (Complete Blood Count).

I went to the cancer center to have blood drawn.  The blood is always drawn from my left arm. I had breast cancer surgery on my right side, so all needles penetrating my flesh must occur on my left side. It's a rule. The vein in my left arm must be pretty tired by now. But as long as the bleeding stops, I'm relatively ok with this rule and this process.

After having blood drawn, I rode the elevator upstairs to the temporary treatment area. The cancer center is being remodeled. So things keep moving around: reception, the lab, treatment, scheduling. It's anybody's guess where one will end up from week to week. At any rate, as I exited the elevator on the second floor, I felt an overwhelming damp sensation at the bend of my elbow. I looked down and saw blood streaming down my arm. The long sleeved white shirt that had been rolled up to accommodate the blood draw now had an ever-growing crimson stain. Too stunned to even move, I stood there with my arm outstretched, catching the blood with my right hand. Fortunately, a nurse happened out of the treatment area and noticed me in my white shirt with growing crimson stain and bloody rivulets held in the palm of my hand.

She took me into the treatment area and cleaned me up. She recognized me from Planet Care, said she lives right behind there, she and her husband walk there often. I barely caught her name. She had a kind face. She bandaged me up anew and instructed me to sit in the makeshift waiting area for my treatment.

I sat for a long while. The blood on my shirt hardened. People periodically asked whether "they" knew I was here. I told them I believed so. And they would disappear into the treatment area to confirm. "Yes, they know you're here. But if no one comes for you in 15 minutes, you might want to poke your head in just to remind them."

I waited. Numb. But expecting only to be given my usual round of NPlate - a thrombopoietin, a substance which causes my marrow to produce more platelets - and then to be sent on my way.

Eventually, the nurse who was to give me my injection beckoned for me in an overly cheerful fashion. I followed her to a seat where a hypodermic with my name on it awaited. She double checked my name and birth date and asked where I was going to take it, in the arm or the stomach. It had been a while since anyone had asked this question of me. "My arm, please," I responded, not really being able to stomach the idea of having a needle in my stomach. She gingerly injected the medicine into my left arm - remember the left arm rule - and quickly placed a bandage over the puncture wound. She told me that the doctor on call wanted to have a look at me before I left since my platelet count was so low. Less than 6. That's short for nearly non-existent.

Whether the bloody scene I'd just witnessed happen on my arm had lulled me into a stupor, I know not. I simply agreed with the nurse, who walked me down to the doctor's office personally.

Once inside the examination room, another nurse approached me with her blood pressure cuff and thermometer. She asked questions about my medication and whether I'd experienced any bleeding symptoms. She left the room and I sent a text to some friends whom I was supposed to be meeting shortly alerting them that I might be delayed.

I was greatly delayed.  I was delayed so much, I didn't meet my friends at all.  I did not help with a fundraiser the next day as I'd planned.  Instead, I laid in a hospital bed with intravenous treatments flowing. 

When the doctor first told me I would need to be admitted to the hospital, I tried to bargain with him.  "Look, doc," I said.  "I live in walking distance to this joint.  What if I walk home - very slowly, very far away from the road - and once home, I climb into bed and not move for the rest of the day?"  He shook his head.  "For the rest of the weekend?" 

He wasn't having it. 

Everything halted for three days.  I missed work.  I missed my usual shenanigans with friends.  I had no internet device.  I read Harry Potter books.  That was my only consolation.   

I was instructed several times, and rather severely, by the nurses that I must summon someone to walk with me whenever I needed to go to the bathroom or get up for any reason. With my platelet count so low, risking a fall would be ill-advised. Eventually one of the nurses told me that there had been a fall last week - a patient who also had a platelet count of 5,000. The nurse would not tell me what the outcome of this fall had been but she did say that it had been traumatic for everyone involved. There was lots of blood.

Visions of blood spurting violently from my body as it struck the floor haunted my mind. Images of flesh falling off my bones at the merest touch, of my arms and legs exploding into a gorey mess all over the antiseptic hospital floor. Of my head melting to reveal, not brains, but masses of red ooze.

So I did as the nurses advised.  Every time I needed to pee, I nurse had to walk me to the bathroom.  She waited for me to finish and then escorted me back to my bed.  Well, I slept on the window seat/guest sleeping area because the fucking hospital bed was constantly inflating and deflating.  No one could figure out how to stop this from happening.  I had to endure a constant sound of mechanical breathing for the entirety of my stay.  But that was preferable to laying on the damn thing.  

My vitals had to be checked often.  Blood was drawn a couple of times a day.  I grew more disheartened with each low count.  The doctor would stop in first thing in the morning and say, "One more day." 

It was a sad and lonely weekend.  Harry Potter was my salvation.  But eventually my platelet count rose enough to allow me to be discharged. 

After returning home from the hospital, the first thing I wanted to do was burn some incense. And then I wanted to put on some soothing music. I could not locate the exact cd I wanted to hear and chose another. I climbed into bed, relieved to be without needles and external fluids flowing into my veins. I fell asleep. I slept long and hard. When I awoke, I was every bit as tired as I had been before sleeping. I drank water. I peed. I crawled back into bed, the welcome chill and softness of cotton bedding as opposed to the vinyl poly synth stuff on the hospital bed and the welcome quiet of my apartment as opposed to the constant mechanical breathing of the hospital bed.

Helltembre was the first cd I truly listened to after this adventure. And it was so right. Lindsay Hollar's husky and baneful vocals, melodies that echo Brecht and Weill, lyrics so passion-filled as to cause one of us human beings in denial of the base parts of our nature to blush. Songs of blood lust, of revenge, of spite, of mistakes and redemption. Bodies. Our base element. The inescapable harsh realities to which we are subjected are all experienced physically. I bleed. I mourn the loss of blood. I seek health. But I'm really afraid of the inescapable fragility of this house that keeps me one step removed from my mortality .

Helltembre is the month in which I live. Helltembre is the love that I know. It is the joy. It is the fear. I do not understand this month, Helltembre. But I am here to live it. I hope there will be an unfolding of wisdom at the end of this month. Helltembre.