A Very Merry Unbirthday....Part 2

“I'm not crazy. My reality is just different than yours. ~ Cheshire Cat”
― Lewis Carroll

When you are faced with death, your perceptions completely change how you see, react, love and be. Those three little words are life changing. Diagnosed on my 22nd birthday with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia, and being told that had I waited another week, I wouldn't be here was probably to most damning to my identity. I thought I had it all together. I thought I knew what I wanted out of life. I thought I knew.....but honestly, what 22 year old really knows.

Now, I have to figure out what I am going to do. I was faced with life decisions that I had no idea about, papers that would decide who would make those tough choices if I was to become a vegetable. Personally, I would've choose a carrot, but that's besides the point. I had no clue. I felt like this was the worst possible dream that I couldn't wake up from. I spent the day getting numerous tubes and holes put in body and by 6pm, the bright orange, happy-looking fluid was flowing in my veins. No one really was saying much to me, just asking questions and acting like this was normal and inside I was tearing myself apart.

“Well, now that we have seen each other,” said the Unicorn, “if you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you. Is that a bargain?”
-Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

My biological Father came to visit me that first night once everyone went home and I had finally passed out. He sat at the edge of my bed and rubbed my leg, he just kept repeating, "You are going to make it through this." I couldn't grasp why he wouldn't answer me and why when I spoke to him he looked so sad. But he would just say, "You are going to make it through this." Tears fell relentlessly. It was the first time I had cried. I woke up a few hours later......my Father had past away a little over a year before this time. But it was exactly what I needed. I needed to hear that everything would be okay. That I would be okay. My family was in shock and questions abound, that no one stopped to tell me, "It will be okay." Thank you, Dad, for that!

It would be okay.