Surrealism

Just when I was getting acclimated to the hospital environment, the doctors and nurses rushed into my room today saying that I should get ready to be discharged. First, I’ll start with some bad news:

BAD NEWS 

1. My brother (and only sibling) is not my bone marrow match. This does make the journey a little more tough to follow, but I still have hope and faith. Once I get home I really want to begin the search and educate the public, especially the Asian American community, about how easy it can be to save lives with four simple cotton swabs to your cheeks. I can’t stand the idea of patients dying simply because we couldn’t find our matches in time. It’s disheartening to know that 95% of Americans aren’t registered, probably due to the stigma of donating a very small sample of bone marrow.

Now that I’ve vented and released the “dark” kernels of what’s on my mind and the slight negativity, here’s the …

POSITIVE NEWS

1. I’m doing really well with the blood work. Platelets, hemoglobin levels are climbing higher in counts on their own naturally. Most importantly the neutrophils, a specific type of white blood cell that is responsible for eating up the germs and bacteria in our bodies so we don’t sick easily, have reached .09! You need 0.5 to be released from the hospital and be safe enough to interact with the mass public, so I’ve already exceeded this threshold, as well as the regular white blood counts.

2. I’m feeling better. Nausea mostly gone. Vomiting gone. I can walk faster now. I have more energy. It feels good.

I’ll be heading back to the Bay Area where hopefully (if insurance goes well) I can continue the rest of my treatment at UCSF. I already miss UCLA dearly.  

 I don’t hate anything — hatred is too harsh of a word to use or an emotion to feel, but MAN I do hate cancer. Because the more I sit here and contemplate how my life has changed so dramatically, the more I realize that I simply can’t die. There’s really no choice, no other option. I HAVE TO SURVIVE. There’s too much good left to do in this world, so much to change that is needed for us to work on to make it a better place, and I WANT to be a part of that. I WANT to be allowed to be a part of that. So … I can’t die. 

PS. As a side note, I really also hate it when people die from being murdered brutally or shot … or just human beings hurting each other. We already have natural disasters like typhoons in parts of Southeast Asia to wipe out innocent lives, not to mention life-threatening diseases that we can’t control … but we CAN control our own actions. So why hurt each other? It continues to boggle my mind. 

Sorry for the mood — maybe it’s the 15 pills/meds I need to take everyday, but man some things just need to change. Stat!