The Wild One

Recently you might have become acquainted with the newest Mastercard commercial featuring legends and their love affair with denim. The first shot is of Marlon Brando from the movie "The Wild One".




I was reminded of the classic line in which he's asked by Mildred's character "What are you rebelling against, Johnny?" His reply: "What do ya got?"

I'm feeling a bit rebellious lately. At first I mistook it for being sad and possibly even depressed but I refuse to succumb to an emotion like depression. It seems to be for the weak at heart and I'm a fighter. I think my support system has crumbled a bit and at first I became sad. Hey, we're six weeks in and people just forget about you or they speak to you as if you didn't just fight the hardest you've ever fought for your life and that the struggle is over. I'll go back to speaking to you like you're not even a human being. Yes, believe it, I have that kind of negative energy coming at me already.

Then again, those that do remain couldn't be better and I just decided that will be good enough. Things get emotionally difficult though. Physically I don't even look like a shadow of my former self, emotionally I am pushed to the depths of my core daily and spiritually my faith is constantly being tested. A 14-hour work day has nothing on this amount of stress. When BMT survivors are surveyed 3-5 years later and asked what their biggest obstacle was, a majority answered "emotional distress". After the worse vomitting bouts or Sickle Cell pain brought on by my chemo that I could experience in life, that says something about the depths of emotional distress, but again, I refuse to be defeated. As Kate Gosselin says, "I will not let them break me."

In other news, I finally met the young man with Sickle Cell Anemia that had his transplant before mine. As I stated before, he was doing very well and is 100% grafted 45 days post-transplant. Just as I was ready to tell you how amazing his experience has been, he returned to the clinic today quite sick and my heart goes out to him. Overall I think he'll do well and I will be writing more about his story in later blogs.

I will be taking a few weeks off from blogging. I am not in the state of mind to write and I'd like to gain some perspective on what I'm feeling and how to manage it better. I thank you for reading my blog. I've been consistently writing since February and experienced quite a range of emotions. I should return by September to bring you back into the loop and to explore my last days in the program, with September 24 being DAY 60 and my last day of reporting to iPOP.

Thank you for reading and enjoy the rest of your summer.

B. Regards,

Christina Madry