I remember as a kid I would hate those words.......please, go back to the end of the line! Everyday I was sent back to the end of the line for cutting or talking to much, I know that is hard to believe! Regardless of the reason I knew I had to start all over and I was not going to get to my desk first or sit in my favorite seat at lunch! Fast forward twenty years later and I still hear that phrase all of the time! Ok, maybe not those exact words but it is still starting all over again no matter how you phrase it. I have heard it regarding a job......I am sorry but after the tenth interview we are just not hiring. I have heard it from people in my life but most of all I hear it when it comes to being sick.
I started the arduous process of the Mayo Clinic this week. Please, do not get me wrong, I am so thankful to even be able to go there and look for new answers to something that has followed me for over ten years. When you walk into the doors of a new doctors office the first thing they do is look at your file and try to find someway to disregard the efforts of the previous physician. So right from the start the regime you have been on for years must me thoroughly tested and tweaked a bit so they can put a mark onto you and your file that will follow you from here on out. That pushes you back to the very beginning!
After hours or even days of testing your blood, urine and sending shocks into your brain and extremities you go home exhausted and in pain. The next day or even weeks after this disturbance you still feel the effects of being exhausted. The one thing that changes is your outlook. For a moment in time you think to yourself......maybe those doctors were wrong before and I don't have to shoot poison in my veins every week! Maybe I can live a normal life and start a family and contribute to this world! Then those thoughts are shattered. The new doctor has no idea what he or she is looking at and nothing has changed and you still go home and prepare to feel sick for two days out of every week. You will eventually get so tired that you feel forced to go get another opinion. In these cases it is not a second opinion or even a third it is like the twentieth opinion!!!!! The hope will build up again and you will be told to please, go back to the end of the line and start over.
Please understand this is not just my thoughts but the thoughts that every individual who has a disease or illness will face at one time or another. For me, yes, I do feel this way often and I know my loved ones also feel this way. The get very excited only to be told that there is no change and the questions you have regarding your loved one will go on being unanswered. I truly feel it is just as hard to love someone who is sick as it is for the patient who actually is sick.
Tonight, I am in the stage of feeling hope! I am probably receiving the best care at the best facility I will ever have access to. I truly feel that if the previous doctor missed something they will find it! I believe I will no longer have to be on chemotherapy! I believe in the hope that my loved ones are feeling tonight. Tonight I am thankful for that hope. Even if it is shattered in a month or so I will not give up. I will follow that feeling of hope through out my entire life. I will rejoice in this hope and hold onto it when I am discouraged because I know it will find me again no matter where I am at or how sick I become. As long as I have hope I know that tomorrow is a new day and I am thankful to see the sun rise in the morning.
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