Surely: July 2, 2022

Today is Day +23, and it’s been a week since my last post; it’s remarkable how so much has changed in the last seven days. It’s true what they say, that sometimes it’s only in looking backward that you appreciate how far you’ve come. Certainly when I woke up this morning feeling the worst I’ve felt in the last few days, I didn’t appreciate how much improved I still was. As much as mindfulness is about staying in the present moment, sometimes I think it’s equally important to recognize where we are on our journey, too. Perspective is everything.

A week ago, I was just starting to venture beyond my hospital room on unsteady legs, unsure if they would hold me for the length of the walk down the hall of G-110. I was discharged from hospital on Monday June 27th, deemed safe to go back to my apartment by physiotherapy, but still very frail. Today I am walking more confidently, more quickly and for longer, and trying to move more every day. I am slowly (too slowly for my liking, to be sure) returning to eating solid foods, and returning to eating in general. My brain functions better and for longer before needing to be re-charged. Showering is less exhausting. The impetuous part of me is frustrated by this rate of change, by its fits and starts, even as I recognize that this is exactly as it should be. Healing is not linear if you hold it up a microscope, and so I keep reminding myself to give myself grace. And then I remind myself again.

It’s easier to measure my progress in other ways: in my blood counts, which demonstrate robust engraftment; in the number of pills I take each day, which is slowly decreasing as my prednisone is tapered. This fortifies me too.

So much of life is a balance between willing yourself forward in the direction you want to go, and accepting that you are exactly where you are supposed to be. Even, maybe especially, when that place is uncomfortable. I’m going to be spending a whole lot of time in this uneasy realm of recovery, so I’d best get comfortable with this particular discomfort.