Hope Is a Dangerous Thing: May 30, 2022

Today is my Day -10. The days are labelled this way to count down until Day 0 - my stem cell transplant - and thereafter transition to positive integers, cleaving in two the before and after. Once transplant happens, I begin counting up the days until my stem cells start producing a new immune system, until my body starts again producing its own blood cells, until I can be discharged. Until I can go home.

There are only three days left until my admission to hospital, upon which I will receive my PICC line and Carmustine. This will be the first of a six-day chemo ‘conditioning’ regimen designed to wipe out my old immune system, so that when my newly infused stem cells make their way back to my bone marrow, they will find it move-in ready. The conditioning regimen is arduous, taking a toll on my body and possibly my spirits, too.

These past few days have been a distraction from the necessary preparation for a long and gruelling hospital stay, where for the most part I will be isolated in my room. There is the physical readying, which I welcome: making lists, online shopping, packing, clipping my nails short (I’m not allowed to cut them in hospital for fear of bleeding). And then there is the emotional steeling for the road ahead. On one hand, I am eager to get started, to move forward toward a future that is bright. But on the other, I am scared. I am scared of feeling sick, scared of whether some of my mental fortitude might be stripped away while mired in illness, in a body and situation I cannot fully command. I have arrived at this transplant firm in my conviction that I am exactly where I need to be, and I’m scared of it wavering.

I am not in Cleveland expecting to be cured, and am learning to accept my imperfect body as is (although don’t get me wrong, I would welcome the improvement that some people experience post-transplant). But the only reason I can choose this difficult journey ahead is because I truly believe it will stop the relentless progression of MS. I need to hold onto that. But at the same time, I cannot yet let go of the small stone of reservation that this might not work.

I wager hope.

And yet.

Hope is a dangerous thing.