My friends, this is not the triumphal column I planned to write for the holiday season. I expected to clatter merrily into 2006. The post-Switzerland scans were going to show vast improvement in this nasty cancer.
That would have allowed me up to four years without chemotherapy. I was planning to run again, with you -- slowly at first, building up to my former sub-eight-minute-mile pace. And then even faster. And longer distances. The idea of a marathon beckoned.
This feeling of normalcy was going to pervade my entire existence. After all, I don't need to keep the cancer inside in order to remember the lessons I've learned during the past three-plus years. As Migger (half of the delightful couple who took care of Marcelo and me in Basel) said, "We will love you even when the cancer is gone."
Instead, I'm dyeing.
My hair. My mom cut it the other day, chunks of gunmetal gray fluff coating us and the bathroom floor. "What can we do to make it look interesting?" she asked, surveying my shorn scalp.
It is now quite brown.
The contrast of light eyes and dark hair is always unusual.
But this is about the tears that have been lurking behind those eyes for the past several days, spilling over at odd occasions. It is about the catch in my throat when I relay the scan results.
It is the feeling of having to reach around an Army boot lodged in the center of my chest in order to type this column.
The echocardiogram showed that my heart's ejection fraction has dropped drastically.
The CT scan indicated that the treatment in Switzerland … did not accomplish what we had hoped.
The liver has become problematic. Two cancerous lesions I was not even aware of grew since my last scan.
My new oncologist, Dr. Finn, spoke of chemos that I hadn't heard of. I also caught words and phrases such as "cardiologist," "irradiate the liver," "clinical trials," and "radiologist."
Marcelo took most of it in; I sat on the examination table and cried silently.
My platelets went from being in the mid-50s (they're supposed to be at least 150) to 19. I am sporting a fascinating constellation of bruises, just from everyday life.
By the way, anyone have O-negative blood? I'm the Universal Donor, only I am not able to donate because of this disease. But as a recipient, O-negative is all I can receive. Just curious.
Here's the thing: All has changed in my world since we got this recent news.
And yet, nothing has changed. I am alive, my son is the best human I've ever met; my friends and family have decided to stay for the long haul.
I will run again. I will bring my dreams to fruition. I still get to imagine how things will be, and work on how they are now.
Because miracles have already occurred in my life. And they continue to appear, all around us.
Just before we left Basel, one of the doctors was writing out a last-minute prescription for me when he suddenly said, "I went on your Web site," a look of puzzlement on his face.
"What did you think? My best friend Bridget designed it. Isn't it amazing?" I asked.
"I don't think something like that would be possible in Switzerland," he said simply.
"What do you mean? Something like what?"
"You know, the (Hope for Heather) run, the guest book, the --" his voice trailed off. "The Swiss are not that way," Dr. Holstein struggled to explain. "They are more reserved."
This über-intelligent medical man was trying to tell me that he didn't think an outpouring like the support and affection I received from the community was possible anywhere in his entire country.
Kind folks, you are generating wondrous events. Please know this to be true; I am the recipient of such phenomena.
My path will take a drastic, abrupt switch from where I thought it was leading. But that's all it is: a different path.
And as long as I continue to love, there is no room in my existence for fear.
During this holiday season, don't make deals with your personal demons. Whatever emotion you feel, promise me you will still turn your face toward the light of love.
Then the darkness will have nowhere to hide.
I love you. Blessings be with you. Happy New Year.