Check-In

​Well folks, I have made it.  I am checked in and registered as an official Bone Marrow Transplant patient after ten long years of waiting and fighting for a cure.  Thanks to my sister, Jason, my son and parents, I have packed up and relocated to Karmanos Cancer Center in hopes of a cure.  As I sit here with the Tigers game on TV, typing my first post from my new room, my son is sitting next to me watching something on his tablet, with his headphones on, laughing out loud and making me smile.  Thanks to him, I know that I can smile even in a place that makes me feel out of place and uncomfortable.  He always makes me smile and that is just one of the many reasons why God has blessed me with him.

I can't describe the thoughts that are racing through my head.  Part of me is still me, happy, positive and optimistic in the present moment.  I am making friends with the staff, the nurses, and making this feel as much like a stay-cation as I possibly can.  Then, like commercial breaks, I get a hard reality check and I am reminded that the next days, weeks, and even months, will be the toughest challenge that I have ever faced in my entire life.  I think of how the chemo that begins tomorrow, will impact my body physically.  I am not sure how one prepares to feel broken, weak, nauseous, fatigued, and all around sick.  I don't know how that feels.  I have been living with cancer for over ten years and I can safely say that I have pushed myself through times when I should have been down, but just kept going.  I refused to stop and have taken that mindset every single day of this journey.  I am still doubtful, perhaps ignorant, to the thought of slowing down and becoming a "patient."  However, I am pretty sure that the two kinds of chemotherapy I will be given combined with completely destroying my immune system, will leave me with little to no choice of moving at lightening speed; Tara speed.
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So we will see what the days to come will reveal.  I have taken my first set of medications tonight...liver protector, anti-seizure meds, blah, blah, blah.  Of course, I have requested a print out of each of the medications I am taking in, since I am still me; control freak by nature.  I will keep moving forward, taking one day at a time and, if needed, one hour at a time if that is all I can handle that day.  I have checked in and won't be checking out for a while, but when I do, I will be doing so, cancer-free.  I am ready to do this and there is no turning back.  Losing is not an option, that's what I keep telling myself.  Cancer, you have met your match...GAME ON.