Trying not to extend myself in extenuating circumstances

“This is a life-changing experience”.  How many people you heard use this phrase?  I’ve heard people on game shows, beauty pageants, and talent quests use this in some predictable throwaway fashion.  Well, I suppose if one bases one’s measurement of ‘life-changing’ on criteria like one’s financial status, public popularity, and perhaps how many times one appears on the covers of People Magazine, then I wouldn’t argue that such an experience had changed one’s life. 

While I do not judge those who use such phrases loosely, I must say that what I have been through in the past two weeks have indeed for me, been truly life-changing.  Physically right now, my body is in a post-trauma state, as the most basic element in me, my stem cells, have been transplanted by a generous donor’s gift of new life – his stem cells.  My Blood type is slowly changing to become from what it was, to that of the donor’s blood type.  Yes that is possible.  Meanwhile, there is a whole host of pains and aches in other areas, namely the mucosa lining of various parts of the body.  The doctors have told me to patiently wait this out, the most arduous part of the healing process, where the donor’s stem cells begin to engraft onto my marrow, and starts of manufacture the necessary healthy white cells on its on.  This will be a sign that the worst is over, and that I can look forward to better days ahead.  But those days are still not here, and I believe that I should not write what pain has taught be before the lesson is over.

Where have I been to is difficult to describe, and the wordsmith in me fails to find words that have any sense of accuracy.  Hell would be an exaggeration, but I’d say it was very close on quite a few occasions.  I have still to ask the proverbial ‘why’ and I still see no need to.  However, I still do very often find myself asking the ‘how’ and ‘what’ questions – how can I make this suffering meaningful for others and myself?  Or what is it in suffering that makes something of a redemptive value, and something else as having very little value?  These will all have a more lasting impact on me and my readers once I do turn that corner and see a little more light at the end of the tunnel, which the doctors tell me should in within the week.

To this end, I still need to encapsulate myself in stillness and learn from silence, the great teacher of life.