As I explained in the first chapter, I landed during the night in the ER room of the Liege University Hospital Centre. As you can imagine, I can hardly remember what happened that night but I have vague images of doctors and nurses above me working perfusions… I did not realise that during that first night, they did all types of analysis included bone marrow extracted from the sternum.
It took me a while to realise that I was not supposed to see the next morning… By the way I am not even sure I actually saw it! It is really hard to say when but I woke up in the intensive care where I clearly remember a doctor telling me that I had a leukaemia and I’ve been told that I answered that we’ll fight then went back to sleep! The next thing I remember is being visited regularly by my wife and my mother twice a day but have no clue how long it did last… I had to stay there due to really bad condition but I recall drinking a lot and watching TV… That was my first visit in intensive care… Unfortunately I had to go back there after my first surgery for my diverticulitis.
I have more memories of that episode but I prefer to consider out of the scope of the blog but for sure the nurses and doctors there deserve all my recognition for their dedication as their job is literally to get people back on track to move in a normal hospital room to be treated. They have to deal with all types of pathologies and display extreme patience and availability as the only other option out of there is far from being optimistic!
Anyway, having said that, they made it happened and I ended up in room 10 of floor -3 in haematology! At that moment going to chemotherapy sounded like great progress and at least a step forward… At that moment I was getting more and more consciousness and so better understanding of what I was going through! My thoughts at the time were mixed and remained so for a long while…
The whole chaos in my mind was shifting from great! let’s move to the next step and get fixed to hell! almost dead and so much I have not done, I am not prepared to go yet… These will guide my behaviour since then as I am a learner “by design” and so have to get ready just if it happens again.
In that game you don’t get multiple lives so when you get an opportunity to correct what you missed first, you have to take it and do your best to improve what you can!
Do not get me wrong… I am still far from being what I should but hopefully I am now in a better direction! I believe I can’t change my DNA (even if my bone marrow and blood type changed) and I am still a detailed enthusiastic guy (better put some emphasis on positive traits) but I think I spend more time listening, sharing and taking myself less seriously. Life is too short and we should make sure we create an environment that enables fun both at home and at work (this is compatible with professionalism)…
Having said that, I am now in my cosy room on the haematology floor alone and in protected (not sterile) environment… So we reach the split to the next chapter that will cover surgeries and their consequences!
I’ll also take some time to add hyperlinks in my texts in order to have the opportunity for you to get relevant information and getting you back to chapter 1 🙂