Enough Is Enough

So, this is what happened. On Friday morning at 7.30 my brother drove me to the hospital for another blood test and chemo session. I'd been eating shiitake mushrooms like it was going out of fashion all through Thursday evening (I had read somewhere that they raise leukocytes – hey, whatever works, I'm willing to give it a shot!), in the hope for better blood results.

The hard work paid off. I was seated as usual on the hospital bed and hooked on the machine. This time the nurse had great difficulties in finding a vein that would work and had to pinch me several times. It really hurt. She said my veins were becoming hard and cloggy. No shit, Sherlock!

The smell of the plastic got the better of me this time. Halfway through the treatment, I started to feel sick. I hurried to the toilet, dragging the intravenous machine behind me with the plastic tube hanging from my arm. While sitting on the bathroom floor - the tubes entangled, the fucking machine going crazy and beeping, me vomiting my guts out, tears and snot falling all over my face - only one thought came to my mind:

”Laura, if you were to think about your life and the worst thing that has ever happened to you, THIS would be it. It can't get any worse than this. Now, you've really hit rock bottom.”

And however silly it may sound, thinking that gave me comfort. There I was, alone, locked inside of a hospital toilet, laughing and looking at myself, contemplating the sorry state I was in, and repeating, "if I can get through this, I can get through anything".