My constant companion

Outside of Dominic, I have another constant companion. (As an aside, Dominic had other suggestions for my constant companion, but we'll go with what I've set out to share. Our humor may not translate so well.) My constant companion: a lump, in my throat, that I sometimes forget about until the simplest of things tugs at my heart. It's not always a bad tug. Quite often, it's a lovely tug. But, as you can imagine, emotions run high on this journey, and I feel all of them.

We were just visited by one of the nurses in training. We were his very first patient in the Oncology unit about a month ago. He got to meet Sam on her trip out here, and she made a friend for life. Tonight, he just stopped by to say good night and that he hoped he'd see us next time. He didn't have to. We weren't his patient today. He just wanted to. We love that.
He's a very tall young man. He's so earnest in what he does. He's like an amazing creature even larger than the one that stands before us. I mean, I just think there's so much more to him tucked away in that shy form. It tries to leak out through his fingertips, I can see, as his fingers seem to be moving to an invisible song, as if they are outside of him.

He always makes me smile. The people we would never have met had we not found ourselves in this predicament.

We celebrated with another nurse as I spotted an engagement ring. We heard the story and ooohed and ahhhhhed over proposal photos. How honored we are to share in this excitement!

I cried today with a young woman in the caregiver support group. She is a daughter, and I believe that's all I should say regarding her circumstances. I can't not cry as someone shares their fears and sadness. But I don't feel diminished for crying. I feel like this perfect stranger and I met and shared our hearts and are the richer for sharing.

One of the nurse's aids just makes me happy because she is almost not for real. She has a thick accent with a little girl voice that is almost a constant lyrical giggle. She hugs hello and leans up against the nurses when she's making a joke, like a school girl sidling up to her buddies. She is always happy, always infectious and always makes me smile. But I don't let that little girl voice fool me, as she stated tonight, she managed this whole floor. She works. Tirelessly. And we bid her adieu tonight for two well deserved days off.

I mentioned elsewhere, we participated in an awareness walk yesterday for Be the Match, a bone marrow donation registry. It was televised last night, but I can't tell you if I made an appearance with my cry face. It was the strangest thing. The walk was organized on the ward so that people in the ward could participate. We were whisked over from the Infusion Center, and the quiet into a bustling ward of nurses, doctors, patients and survivors. At the end of this, Dominic will be considered a survivor. As that sunk in some more, in those moments, I could not hold it together. Right now, he's my fighter. And he's already my survivor.

We had to walk slowly round the corridor to accommodate a recent transplant patient in a wheel chair, and another pushing his wing man. The local news station interviewed our doctor, and it seemed like his voice broke as he talked about how the simple act of donating marrow is the difference between life and death for some people. Both the gravity of his words and the feeling he had sharing them moved me to tears. And it wasn't until we reached the corner with the makeshift bowling set up, and the kid's weight bowling ball that I was able to shake the somberness. I guess there were words like knocking cancer out on the pins, and it really did have a connection to the event. But our "not a joiner" instincts kicked in. We looked kind of horrified at the whole set up. But, in the end, Dom bowled a strike, and so we are knocking cancer out.

Incidentally, I have a new night shirt. It's nicer looking than the neon green shirt I wore for a very awkward episode a few months back. It seems like a life time ago that we were the outsiders pulled in by the thinnest of threads, as I volunteered to lead a warm up before a different awareness walk. I didn't know a single person, I never did meet the person who emailed me, I never did find out what they wanted or expected. I was thrown on a stage to lead a warm up for a walk that was far from underway to a group of people who were still super busy taking selfies and about five people looked at me wondering why on earth I was there.

We try not to wonder why on earth we are here. To do that is just a road we cannot go down. So we resolve to be here. To be us, here, and love each other and everyone who walks with us, friend, nurse, whomever.

The finish line sign still hangs at the end of the corridor, and naturally our room is at that end as well. We're one room away from the finish line literally. I step outside our room, glance up at the sign, and hope that we're one room away from the finish line figuratively as well.