da hala'i hope da 'ino
2 days of reflection has allowed me to clearly see how dark this experience has become for the two of us.things are looking up though. after going to the office's employee relations team, i was able to win the battle over my paid leave. after several hours of e-mailing and phoning, my supervisor admitted that he had lost the paperwork that i had submitted for the family medical leave act and that his supervisor had used it as a loophole to bring up the old rule.
all is clear now, i can exhaust my leave, apply to have some donated if i need it, and it was a learning experience for my supervisors. still no apology for treating me differently than my pregnant coworker, but i'll take the victory that i got, thanks. i guess the miracle of birth is a lot easier for people to understand than a bone marrow transplant.
i was very tempted to say over the phone, "i was rii-iight, you were wroo-oong, ninny-ninny-boo-boo" but of course restrained myself as i am a grown-up, or am at least pretending to be one.
hubby's got the beginning signs of graft vs host disease. this is good and bad news all rolled up into one. too much of it can make the graft fail, or even kill him. however, a little bit of it means that the new marrow is in his bones, growing, and trying to set up a new immune system. it has us both teetering on edge between joy that we have an outwardly visible sign that the transplant is working, and fear that the gvhd could get out of hand and become a life-threatening complication in the matter of an hour or two. for now i'll take the "woo-hoo-the-new-marrow-is-working" viewpoint.
p.s. post title is "the calm after the storm" in hawaiian. thanks to hope and lisa for showing support.
posted by amanda @ 2:23 PM
4 Comments:
Hope introduced me to your website.
I just wanted to tell you first of all that I'm glad things are looking up a little bit today. I hope that trend continues and that the hopeful thoughts about the bone-marrow working is indeed what is happening.
And I also wanted to tell you that I've been through the experience of people elevating the importance of pregnancy over a serious illness too... and I didn't get it at all either. I was pregnant when my Mom was diagnosed with cancer and people, throughout the process were always way into baby details, and didn't seem to care about the cancer stuff. It made me angry often.
People are weird, and I'm sorry you had to deal with such ugliness as a result of people's messed up perception of life.
I'm glad the paid leave got worked out. I prayed specifically that it would get sorted out simply. I will continue to pray. I am sorry you are going through this. I don't have any answers but I do feel a ton of compassion for you both.
Hi, I came here via Hopes site as well, and just wanted to let you know that there is another person out there that is thinking about you both, routing for you both, and praying for you both. I really hope that things start to look up for the two of you.
You asked if you could post a link to my blog--please do!
I will keep praying, hoping, and checking in!
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