This highway

Dear readers: Just a reminder, I've primarily been using this blog to share my journey walking with Dominic through his cancer treatment. I do share more details about his journey in our group on Facebook. This is my place to process and share. (It's also my place to break all the grammar rules. Because I can.)

I love driving metaphors. I don't know why I do, because I'm not a huge fan of driving. At all. And this period in my life has me driving like never before. Well, except that time I lived in Orange County and drove to LA for early morning casting calls. I disliked driving then too.
I have generally always been the one to drive long distances to visit family. With exceptions, but it burned me out. All that driving alone.

It's so much nicer driving with a partner. This journey that Dominic and I are on is serious business. We have found it is better to stay positive, hopeful and kind. I share mostly nice things here, because that is how we want to see things. On that note, I've even made friends with the refrigerator police. Yes her. She has a huge smile for me now when I approach her for something. Because kindness with people is everything.

But I joked with someone a while back when she remarked how kind I am, or some such. I mentioned my real character comes out in the car. The real me that's not all dolled up for the blog, or for the nursing staff, or for our support group; that me can be vicious.  Do not cut in front of me as if I'm not also trying to get some where. Do not crawl up my tail or you will get the most vicious stare down. I will comment out loud and subject poor Dom to my every little thought about how horrible people are. I am not all love and light behind the wheel.

I do try to be a courteous driver. I let people in front of me with a smile. I stick to the slower lanes if I'm not racing at one hundred miles per hour. I keep a good distance between myself and the car in front of me. If traffic allows such.

If the gods are smiling on you, you will never have to be a passenger in my car though. You will probably be safe. But you will be subject to a litany of commentary.

I'm going to make a gigantic leap here. I read something this morning that resonated with all these thoughts I'd been having.
I think you'd have to have your head under a rock to not know that the world as we know it is pretty chaotic. It seems like a lot of people are in the midst of something huge. One of my favorite writers has a response for people who are tired of fighting. He, Jim Wright says he's tired of fighting gravity, but there really isn't an alternative if you want to stay upright. If you want a better nation, he says, you have to be better citizens.

I think that rings so true.

It's the little things that all add up. If we can't do the right thing in the smalls.....who is to do the right thing in the majors?

While one person has admired my kindness, another has categorized me as a goody goody, because I like to do the right thing. It's all perspective isn't it? Someone's a goody goody until that right thing directly benefits someone, and then they're all right. There's big challenges raging right now. Really big. Natural disasters, politics, and cancer to name a few. And while it's important to do the big things: to show up, to voice concern, to donate, to fight the fight and take the pills, it's also important to do the little things. The goody goody things. The Golden Rule things.

I like to remember I am not *in* traffic, I am *part of* the traffic. I am the good and the bad. I am the too fast and too slow. It reminds me of something I shared a while back. I was behind someone with all the bumper stickers. At a stop light, I was able to read a few. One said essentially, that if you can read this to back off, while another said something like if they're climbing up your a$$ to step on the gas....Essentially, this person wanted all the control. Don't drive too slow in front of this car, and don't drive too fast and tailgate behind this car. Now, aside of the ridiculousness of someone in front of the car not being able to read instructions on a bumper sticker in the rear of this car....this was a sad commentary. It kind of sums up one way of traveling. Go at exactly my speed, and everything will be okay.

The thing is, by design, we all go at different speeds.

I'm afraid to hit the publish button.... this feels so preachy. But, it's what's on my heart as I navigate through this journey. Dominic and I are trying to stay positive; but sometimes I feel like I'm faking it. They say your true character shows up under stress, and I worry that the real me is the one grumbling behind the wheel. As positive as I like to be, I also want to be transparent.


 It's also on my heart that people are full of beauty. The same person that is taking up space on the freeway could also be the person who brings a meal, or says just the right thing at the right time. I don't think there is any act of kindness too small. Maybe we can't cure cancer today. Maybe we can't all come to the same decisions politically. Maybe there are so many things falling apart. But, in times of stress, we are coming together. I know we can spread kindness. I know we can spread love. I see it  through this process. I have been so impressed by the many different people who hold us up and love us. Every small action really does add up. So, as much as I dislike driving, I'm so grateful it's just part of the journey. I'm so grateful for my driving partners. I'm so grateful for the traffic, that is really people doing life with us.

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.