October 8, 1999 -- You have what??
Wow, what a week!
Dave had a doctor's appointment on Wednesday, the 6th, for a physical. No biggie, just a routine check up. For the most part, he's in pretty good shape.
On Wednesday, he got a call from his doctor that his white blood cell (WBC) counts were high, his platelets were low, and he's slightly anemic. Hmmm. Could the high WBC be caused by a sinus infection? No, the counts are too high for that. The doctor wants to refer Dave to a hematologist.
So he makes an appointment for Dave. It will be on Friday at 3:00. We don't think much of it. Maybe he'll get some iron pills and antibiotics.
Friday afternoon I'm getting ready to go out into the woods behind our house and pick some wild grapes to make jelly. Dave gets home just as I'm ready to go out.
I can picture this so clearly. I'm standing in the kitchen, and he comes up the stairs. He's setting down his briefcase and he tells me the doctor thinks he had leukemia, specifically Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia. It's not life threatening, but the only known cure is a bone marrow transplant.
Helllllooo! What happened to the iron pills and antibiotics?
So we stand there and Dave tells me about having a bone marrow aspiration (they use a big needle to draw some bone marrow out of his hip). He tells me everything he can remember. They gave him lots of stuff to read, and they made an appointment for him to go back on the 20th for the test results.
All the while, I'm thinking, "It's starting to get dark, and I really want to go pick grapes because it's supposed to rain tomorrow."
At some point, I must have stopped breathing because I got really lightheaded and had to sit on the stairs and put my head between my legs.
It still wasn't real. It seemed like, "Okay, you've got something, but it can be fixed. No biggie."
We went about our business for the weekend. I went to Middlebury, Vermont, to meet my father and sister who were taking a train ride up from Albany. I told them Dave had a cold and didn't want to come. His back was pretty sore.
I don't even remember Sunday. Dave was pretty sore all weekend tho. I was still okay with this.
Then comes Monday morning. I get up and go through my morning routine. I'm standing in the bathroom drying my hair when out of the clear blue I burst into tears and couldn't stop crying. The enormity of the situation hit me.
"Oh my god, what's going to happen to Dave? He has LEUKEMIA. This isn't a wart on his foot he'll have cut off. This is HUGE."
So I went to work and was miserable for a few days. Finally, I think it was Wednesday, no one was around, so I went into my boss's office, shut the door and started crying. She looked at me with such concern and asked me what was wrong. Through sobs I told her Dave had leukemia. She gave me a big hug, and we sat at the table and I told her all I knew (which wasn't much, at that point). She told me whatever I needed to do, she and the company would support me.
It felt so good to tell someone and let it out. I then told Ned, the guy whose office is across the hall from mine. He's the Creative Director, and I work pretty closely with him, so I wanted him to know what was going on. He listened and offered his support also.
I decided to tell my coworkers at lunch that day. Unfortunately, only 3 of them showed up, but they're the 3 I work most closely with, so it was good to be able to tell them first. Again, I told them all I knew, and they had lots of questions. As more people showed up, I would tell them.
It didn't get easier to tell people, but each time I had to tell it, I was able to deal with it a little easier.
And that's pretty much where our adventure begins.
Hope you'll join us for the ride. It promises to be an interesting one!
Allison