For the past seven years, my sister has been fighting Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL).
Three years ago, on the advice of her doctors, she had a bone marrow transplant.
As cancer patients go, she’s done very well. Since her transplant, she’d had no serious infections or hospitalizations until last Sunday, when she was admitted with a very high fever and pneumonia.
Because she’s been isolated so much of the time, it’s been impossible to completely understand what this illness has done to her quality of life.
The medical, insurance and Social Security/Medicare disability bureaucracies have, I’m sure, been nightmare enough. Keeping track of an ungodly number and variety of medications have been nightmare enough. The symptoms of the disease and the treatments she’s undergone have been nightmare enough.
On top of that, though, is that she’s been deprived, for long periods of time, from ordinary activities that most of us take for granted.
For example, when her immune system is compromised, she can’t handle a library book; use a public restroom; eat salads or anything from a bakery or an ice cream shop; or work in her yard.
She’s been blessed with an extraordinary husband, whose single annual birthday wish is always the same: that Sandy be well.
Yesterday, on the fourth day of her hospitalization, she told me how pleased she was that she had finally been able to shower and get out of bed that morning. She’d barely touched her lunch, there were deep, black circles under her eyes and tremors in her hands, a side-effect of medications.
She’s in a good place, one of the best in the country, in a special ward for bone marrow transplant recipients, and she’s likely to be there for a few more days.
Her cheerfulness and courage are remarkable, as well as her gratitude that she and her husband can afford the best medical care.
She’s told me in the past that her wishes for the future are simple, things most of us take for granted. She worked hard for a remission long enough to plan and to be a radiant attendee at her daughter’s wedding. Her son is getting married next year. A former nursery school teacher, she’s mentioned in the past that she’d like to be healthy enough to have grandchildren some day.
Simple wishes, and I hope they come true.