I felt the need to write this type of message before during my “Original Series” (first cancer challenge). I must admit there is a part of me that wishes this element of my journey you could experience first hand so I wouldn’t have to talk about it. I say talk, I mean write, as there really isn’t an element of my journey that I don’t like to talk about. What I’m getting at here is the message I’m communicating is important, it’s just that sometimes I’d rather not write an email about it. This is the part of me that wishes I had all of you with me in my room or a video camera or some additional way of communicating some of the details of what I experience as Geoff Eaton – Cancer Patient.
The reality that I’m referring to is that I’m very sick. It’s the one that means despite my messages and my perspective the very real reality of my situation that I face every single day, because I choose to face it, is that I am very sick.
Very sick means a whole lot of things, it means once again I have leukemia in my blood, that is dramatically influencing the way my body’s running, it means that because of that leukemia I was reacquainted with some old friends Mo and Hickman a couple weeks back, it means that after our meeting I was left to travel on my own with no immune system, it means that I’ve just come through 2 weeks of fever and sickness unlike any I have known after a round of chemo, it means that those 2 weeks of fevers led to my latest meeting with Mr. No-So-Terrible, and perhaps the most sobering reminder was that Thursday past as my potassium level hit 2.5, I was just 0.1 notches away from going back downstairs to another familiar setting , the ICU.
Some of these things I talk about, some of these things I don’t. I can assure you the ones I don’t are far more a matter of circumstance than of my decision to be open or closed. What I really want you all to take from this is a gentle reminder that people in my situation, Cancer Patients, we are sick and we face challenges similar, more and let drastic, than those few I’ve mentioned above virtually every single day of our journeys. If we can all keep that in mind going forward, I feel a major part of my message will have been communicated and received.
It is for those realities above and many others why I choose to focus on today and this present minute, because inside I really feel that if I let my focus go any other way, if I let my focus go to any other place, I’m not giving myself the full absolute best chance to find our magical destination, Remission.
As I write to you today about my reality and some of the more real parts of it, I want you to know that for the first time in my life on Day 27 we’ve got some serious action in my white cells and neutrophils as they are 3.3 and 2.7 respectively. I’ve never been here before. And just as I’ve never been here before I’m sure there are many more new places to come on this journey that we are sharing.
I’ve got lots on my mind to share right now and I’m sure that as my general feeling and blood counts continue to rise those thoughts will only be enhanced. I think I’ve rambled long enough for tonight, but you can count on hearing from me again very soon. Know that my pace has picked up and I’m as confident about the road ahead as ever. For those of you who continue to write I want to say a thank you with feel, as I read everything, yet am not quite in the position to respond to you all personally. Though that is my hope at some point.
Good Night, and …
Always…
Live Life. Love Life.
Geoff
