Eat my stardust, sucker!: EPISODE II: Attack of the Cell Clones

Delain playing at 70000 Tons of Metal (Jeeez, I really suck at taking fotos! XD)

It was during the second Delain show. I was there with friends when all of a sudden I got soooo tired I couldn´t even stand, my breath went away and I almost lost consciousness. I murmered something about not feeling well, that I needed to sit down. And so I sat down, still watching the show. Thinking. Thinking. Listening closely to my body. Trying to swallow the tears and the fear. Cause right at that moment I knew this wasn´t a cough. This was bad. My demon showed me his face for the first time and for sure he wasn´t going to let go. So yeah... I knew. But like we all do, I closed my eyes to the evil in front of me, begging for it all to be a bad nightmare I would wake up from. But I didn´t.

Close the door, please? I´m not here.

So that brings us back to me lying in hospital. To be honest I don´t remember much of this time. Just that I was pushed from station to station, from room to room. I had caught an infection so I was feeling really bad, I had high fever and a bad cough and pain when breathing. I couldn´t eat and what I ate made me sick. My demon was taking over and I felt like fading away. The docs were talking about viruses, have you been to this and that country, we need more blood, you need to inhalate, did we already test this virus? It felt like I was meeting every doc and baby doc (I think they´re called interns in real life, but they are so tiny and cute! ;)) the different departments could bring up. Since they usually didn´t care to introduce themselves I started to give them names myself. Like Dr Barbie (blond, very chipper intern with high pony tail that was always happily whipping around. Ugh!), Dr Pout (self explanatory, isn´t it? ;)) or Dr Rhanjit (colour me prejudiced but he just looked like an Indian guy). I got weaker every day so they started to give me antibiotics just to stop me from slowly going away.

After a week or so they probably had tested every virus there is. Apparently I once had an Eppstein Barr infection (oh how we were all hopin that it would be that! The symptoms are very similar). But no, not this time. We were through with viruses. So there were new words tossed around. Cancer. Blood disease.The next round of testing began.

"Are you afraid??" Erm... yeah, of spiders, and you?

If I start telling all the stories I had to experience in hospital, I would still be sitting here tomorrow. So I stick to the medical stuff (booooooring!), sorry. :) They did an ultrasound of my lymphnodes ("OH MY GOD THEY ARE HUUUUGE!" Ja, wow, thanks Dr 1985), after that they took a biopsy of the ones in my groin. The doc who did that talked to me like I should go and make my testament. Which I still haven´t done... Hmm... Note to myself...Make testament. Leave everything to Grumpy Cat. Cause he rocks.

After the lymphnode biopsy they also wanted to do a bone marrow punctuation where they would take samples both of my bone marrow and bone blood. I barely can talk about it, it was the most horrible and painful experience I ever had to make. My bone marrow had already been so damaged that they had to start twice and because they weren´t able to draw enough blood they had to make a sternal punctuation on the next day. Läuft bei mir.
After the first punctuation I was so weak and I had so much pain that I couldn´t move at all. In the evening I also received my first blood transfusions (but by far not the last! Thanks to everyone out there donating blood. you´re saving lives! :)). It´s funny, while I´m writing this I can feel the metallic scratching on my bone again. It still hurts sometimes and according to my doc it always will.

On 2nd of March it was clear- it´s cancer. The Big C. A lymphoma. What kind we didn´t know yet. There are over 200 kinds of lymphomas, most of them treatable with positive outcome. Don´t give up hope just yet! Apparently there are "nice" kinds of cancer! "If I had to have cancer I would pick this one!" Like shopping for the perfect dress.

For determination of my exact kind they sent my samples to four different hospitals which are the best when it comes to lymphomas. My Mom also knew someone who knows someone who is like the Godfather of Lymphoma so we sent my results to him as well.

In the meantime I had been lying around in hospital for about two weeks. Tested, pushed around between the departments until I had my diagnosis. The demon had finally revealed itself, hardening it´s grip on me. So I changed rooms for the last time. To my final destination. One might say Endstation.

P.S.: The first show of Delain on the Cruise was also very special to me. It was the opening show, and I was watching it, silently crying tears of joy, cause I was so fucking happy that I could be there. Doing what I love, listening to the music that touches my heart and being among friends. It really felt like coming home and I went back to that memory so very often when things got really bad in the past months. That´s also why you should live your life to the fullest. Cause the good memories can help soften the edges of the hard rocky road that is life (oh my, I´m doing it again, I talk like a fortune cookie!!).

P.P.S.: I was actually thinking about writing a little on-the-side blog called "Tales from the Hospital" because I have so many funny anecdotes about the hospital and their staff.