Living to 100 Days

Wow:

While I waited I wrote my will and made an Advanced Directive. There was a question where you could specify what you’d want to happen to your body after you died. I never thought I’d care about such a thing—why would I? I’d be dead anyway. But when I really imagined it, I did care. I wanted to be buried in a Jewish cemetery, somewhere nearby so the people who cared about me could visit. I didn’t want to be forgotten.

But… none of that happened because the tumor shrank with chemo, and I went into remission. Then I fretted about finding a match on the bone marrow registry, but there she was—my little German angel. Then I worried she’d change her mind, or that the stem cells would get lost in transit (she donated her cells in Germany before they were couriered to Los Angeles).

I worried when I was admitted to the hospital while I got total body irradiation and high dose chemotherapy to eradicate my immune system and prepare me for transplant. I worried right up until I saw with my own eyes the bag of cells hanging off the IV pole as they were infused into my body. Now, I only had to wait and see if the cells took, or if a I developed a life-threatening infection, or if I got graft versus host disease, when the donor’s cells attack your own body, which can have serious consequences.

But… none of that happened, either. Sure, I felt like shit in the hospital, but I didn’t have any major complications and after a month I got to go home. I worried about infection but I didn’t get one. I wasn’t supposed to eat takeout but one day I was craving pizza so my mom and I ordered delivery and I ate the pizza and nothing bad happened (we did have to hide the pizza box evidence from my husband because he had an eagle eye on me to make sure I followed all the rules, which I found adorable. I’ve never seen someone use so much Purell in their life).