So Far Away (Part I of III)

I was frigid, shaking, and terrified. The five or six blankets I was under, a couple straight out of the hospital’s blanket incubator, weren’t effective. I wished I had my own giant hen to sit on me. Or I could set myself on fire.

When my body’s temperature increased, I felt the opposite. I was no longer operating at 98.6 degrees. I felt chilled at 100, cold at 101, freezing at 102, and at 103 there was no adjective in the English dictionary worthy.

Every ten minutes I called the doctor in. “Are these blankets going to increase my temperature faster? What happens if it gets higher? Will I have to take a cold bath? Can I go into a seizure?”

My skin was fucked-up — irritated, inflamed, dry, red, flaky — you name it and I had it. I was supposed to slather myself with triamcinolone ointment, a topical steroid. Using the ointment would trap my skin’s heat and make me feel warmer. But in order to use it I had to get out of bed and away from the minimal warmth I’d already collected. I was in the arctic and could either dive into the frozen river to reach the bear hide, or stay by the fire and hope that would be enough. It was one of the most difficult short-term decisions of my life.

Among other things, I had a staph infection in my central line that caused my temperature to rise five degrees in just as many hours. It was not my healthiest year. I had just come home from four months in Minneapolis, halfway across the country, where I received a stem cell transplant. Minneapolis was one hell of a difficult journey. I thought being home meant I was on the path to wellness. Somehow I was worse off than I was before.

At 103.3 my temperature started declining. I did use the triamcinolone. I thought my bones would shiver themselves shattered before I reached the bathroom. The infection went away with the help of vancomycin, a powerful, broad-spectrum, “last resort” antibiotic I’ve received countless times over the years.

Nobody knew what was wrong with my skin, the largest and most underrated organ. Just about every square inch was fucked-up in some way. I went to the dermatology clinic and stripped naked so doctors, nurses, and even medical students could look me over. That wasn’t unusual for me. In Minnesota I had no less than 10 different people see my junk. What was weird was having me face the wall, spread my legs and bend down. I was in a different kind of prison, but the body cavity search remained.

While waiting for blood results at the hospital one day, my brother, JD, went down to the basement cafeteria and brought back a pulled chicken sandwich, coleslaw and potato salad. My temporary nurse practitioner, Arrogance, said, “I bet that’s 800 calories if you finish it all.” I ate maybe an eighth of it before feeling full.

Arrogance always found a way to dampen my spirits. If my meal is 800 calories then I just consumed 100. How can I continue to survive while eating so little? Without the help of Boost and chocolate milk, my daily caloric intake would’ve been under 500.

JD drove me to many of my doctor appointments. That morning on the radio we heard So Far Away by Staind. I’m not good at understanding song meanings, but to me the title said it all. I couldn’t have been further away from my goal, with the exception of being dead. According to my health trend, I was on my way there.

I was so far away from my beautiful university that Thomas Jefferson founded, and from the college life I was supposed to be living. I was so far away from my friends, who were accelerating past me not just in credit hours but also in social experiences, maturity, and new friends earned, the tangible college credits. During my battle with my first cancer there were so many positives, but now I was so far away from even them.

So Far Away (Part II of III)