Mick McKellar Update -- Day +1795

2 X Good News

I had blood drawn and tested, then visited my local oncologist today. Once again, the numbers are within normal ranges! Each time I visit, however, my usually benign blood pressure makes a small jump. It seems likely that I harbor some apprehension which doesn't cloud my conscious mind.

Today was 2016's first test of my capacity to function outside the warm bubble of our home. Walking about was only slightly more difficult than I remember from warmer weather, so fears of collapsing in paroxysms of wheezing, gasping, and coughing were not realized. This also was good news. So, from where did the apprehension arise?

Poignant Flashback

By nature, I am not a fatalist, but I can be overwhelmed. May 26, 2010 was such a day. Prior to that date, six years of cold baths of reality—from the sting of lost jobs, to the ache of rejection letters, to the burning irritation of patronization by those who truly believed themselves a class above—enticed me to drift a short distance from shore, tethered only by a golden cord.

On that day in May, hearing my own name and the word leukemia in the same sentence severed that flaxen cord and sent me adrift on rough seas. Voices from my past echoed across the water, insidiously reminding me that leukemia is a death sentence. My initial response was conditioned: Roll into a ball and ride the tide to a messy and painful end.

That dread reaction lasted until I flat-lined, in the ambulance, on the road to Marquette. Everyone froze for a microsecond. The shock evaporated when we simultaneously noticed that one of the electrodes on my chest had fallen off because I was sweating. The resultant laughter broke the death spell and resurrected my Celtic fire and integral stubbornness.

Thus began the fight for my life.

Waiting for Shoes to Drop

Since that time, each visit for testing and evaluation, each time they look under the hood to ascertain the need for maintenance or overhaul, is like waiting for the other shoe to drop. (Folks lived in apartments where you could hear the upstairs folks taking off their shoes. One hit the floor and they awaited the inevitable drop of the other shoe.) Well, leukemia removed my first shoe in 2010. The second has not fallen yet, and I pray it never will.

Mick