The Great Unpacking Of Love
Part 6

June 2014, I feel in great shape, I am working, I have regained all my dynamism and all my carefreeness. But that’s without taking into account the insidious cancer! One evening, phone call from my hematologist guru. Do you know many doctors who call you at home late for minor matters? Not me. And I lost all naivety about it. I have a very bad feeling and I’m not wrong, he tells me that I will have to board my survival ship again. Relapse! I need to meet him urgently. I hang up, I’m in tears, my legs give way under me.

Shit, shit and shit, here we go again like in 40! Why me, what have I done to the Good Lord to deserve this? I no longer feel the strength to face Lady Chemo. My morale is at 36th below. How can I get away from it? I don’t see a way out, although… But you don’t die of moral distress unless you give the Grim Reaper a little help. My psychological suffering is intolerable. You don’t die that easily. I am forced and forced to continue my life, even if I hate it. I feel like my feet weigh ten tons, I no longer want to move forward. If hell exists, it must look like it.

But that’s without counting on my hematologist who has more than one trick up his sleeve. He suggested a bone marrow transplant, an allograft. This will allow me to rebuild my immune system and destroy any future cancer cells. It is imperative to find a donor among my siblings. On this point, if God exists, he did well. I only have one sister and she is compatible. She is ready to do what is necessary for me. What an act of love to offer me, I hope, Life. Giving of yourself to save others, what a powerful act in life!

Hope is reborn in me. I thumb my nose at the Grim Reaper. I feel ready to leave. My sister and I are going to play communicating vases. The stem cells collected the day before at her home will be returned to me in the form of a b***d transfusion the next day.

Here I am again in a sterile bubble for three weeks. I live there surrounded by green cosmonauts tracking down the slightest microbe and I eat “Tricatel” in abundance. The more chemical, the better! Having acquired VIP status in hospitals, I am entitled to a bubble of life overlooking the Meuse and a magnificent landscape. Basically, given my extensive experience, I could create the Gault & Millau of hospitals! Speaking of the guide, I give five stars to my team of supporters who, just like the first time, support me hoping that I cross the finish line again.

The transplant is going well, the side effects are minimal and I feel myself growing wings while riding a bicycle, the only attraction in my closed space. I pedal, I pedal towards life. My morale is number one at box office

After this relapse, what could be more normal when I see the tip of the nose of hope dawning, thanks to a humanitarian donation, to feel within me a surge of life, joy and uncontrollable happiness .

I flirted with death and during our divorce, I think she was the one affected the most. I, who had lost my taste and my appetite, finally no longer pitched on my raft of misfortune until I felt nauseous. Paradoxically, I developed another extremely rare and little-known disease: “Carpe Diem bulimia”, more commonly known as joie de vivre. While treating this bulimia, I reacted very badly to a medication and still suffer today from a rare side effect that affects one in a million people: positivity associated with acute optimism.

My hematologist said to me in a voice from beyond the grave: “Josephine, you are going to have to live with this. You have chronic GVHD. » GVH2? What is this barbaric term? My medical guru, visibly very affected by what he is about to reveal to me, turns to me, takes my hands in his and says to me: “GVH means Cheerful, Alive, Happy”.

Eager to comfort me, he adds: “In your misfortune, you are very lucky, it is not contagious.” There, I feel that my GVHD is slipping through my socks. What, I wasn’t going to be able to insidiously infect life’s killjoys with AIDS! Well too bad, for once I’m going to be selfish and take full advantage of my GVHD.

I feel like I’m looking for lost time and tasting everything that life can offer me, everything I’ve always dreamed of.

Everything interests me, I look for the exceptional, I chase time, it’s tiring, exhausting. My frenzy for the living, for the positive is far from being understood by those around me who struggle to keep up with me. I want happiness, joy, to hell with the pessimists, the complainers, the false friends. Cancer made me realize the price of life and I realize that everything could end tomorrow. I don’t want to miss anything and especially not miss out on my life.

As if by magic, suddenly my dreams seem accessible to me.

Little by little, I get back on the train of my life. My sick label is fading to make way for an ordinary woman. How good does it feel to be Ordinary! Long live the daily grind!