No Woman, No Cry

I guess everybody has those days- you know, those days when nothing seems to go right, when the bad outweighs the good, when all you want is one little thing and you get everything else you don't want. I went to Parkland yesterday for the first time as a patient. I went alone, because I insisted on being alone, I insisted on being dropped off because I'm a big girl and I can take care of myself. But Parkland isn't like the other hospitals I've been in, it's more like ER. It's the poorest and the sickest people who have no where else to go. And sitting there for hours upon hours just waiting to be seen, watching all the sick people, hundreds of them just sitting and waiting, it wore on me. That, along with the anemia, I guess, I don't know. It sounds dramatic, but it's just a really depressing place. People seem to have the soul sucked out of them in that basement, lined up in chairs, coughing and crying and bleeding and throwing up, waiting, just like me, waiting for hours, waiting to feel better somehow. So many people, and I should have just felt blessed because there were so many so much sicker than me. I thought I was strong enough: to go and handle it alone and not have to worry about what it would do to me mentally, and I don't know what happened exactly, but I just started crying. I cried and cried and cried. I cried more than I have cried since I found out I had cancer, and I guess maybe that's why I cried so hard. Maybe I realized, looking at all those sick people, just how sick I could become. Maybe sitting next to the lady with lung cancer made me think about how this cancer could spread. Maybe I was dealing for the first time with how serious this all is. I don't know. I don't really even know what to say about it, and, of course, I thought about not letting anyone know how I cracked like an egg, but I guess that I hope by sharing it, somebody else with this kinda situation knows that there will be days when you're just so tired, just so ready to feel better, just so tired of being sick and so ready for the whole thing to be over. And I guess that's ok. I guess everybody needs those days when they just need to let it all out and be sad about it and give themselves a chance to get over the suckiness of it.
I feel better today. I came home and had a couple of glasses of wine and some mashed potatoes. My scar started burning, so I assumed Voldemort was near, and thought it might be best to just hit the sack early. I took a shower and got a good night's sleep. I guess I feel lucky again to be as well as I am. My PET scans all came back clear, which means, conclusively for the first time basically, that the cancer hasn't spread. It's the best Christmas present I could ever ask for, and the truth is, I am a lucky girl, even when I don't feel like it sometimes. And maybe this whole thing will just somehow make me stronger. That's all I'm asking for: a higher purpose in all this. A reason to learn. And a better day tomorrow.