LIFELINE
By Chelsea Dagg


SAGE

My mom and I have gone through different stages in our relationship. When I was young, I hated her. Of course, I use the term hate, loosely, because as a child I hardly knew the full impact the word encompasses. I think most children go through this stage anyways, especially with their mother, because she is usually the one to dole out punishments and reprimands.
I remember one time in particular she made me so mad that I locked myself into my room and refused to come out. I had asked, very sweetly, mind you, if I could go over to my friend Anna’s house. I was six and she lived three blocks from our house.
“No.” That was all she said. Being a kid, I definitely could not let it go at that. I wasn’t even mad at this point, just confused.
“Why not? Her mom said I could. Her mom said we could play house and eat cookies and –“
“Well she is not your mother. I am and I’m saying no. We’re leaving tomorrow for Grandma’s house and you need to clean your room up and pack.” My mom was wiping counters down in the kitchen and her hair was pulled back in a frizzy ponytail. She didn’t stop cleaning as she told me this terrible news and I suppose I was still mildly confused. I kicked her in the shin and ran to my room where I locked the door and stayed until a couple hours later when my mom had had enough and picked the lock.
“Sage.” She opened my door a crack and, seeing me moping on the bed, made her way across the room. “May I sit with you?”
I remember very clearly shaking my head, and feeling anger, relief, and shame all at the same time as she sank down onto the mattress beside me. “Go away,” I croaked out. “I hate you.”
“No you don’t,” Mom laughed. “I used to say that to my mom all the time little missy. I’m sorry I upset you though, but you can’t always have your way. We have a busy day tomorrow and I don’t have the time to drive you around. Plus, you have to clean your room and pack. Do you understand Sage?”
Tears escaped the inside corners of my eyes and I nodded. “I just really wanted to play with Anna.”
Looking back on it now, I can see that in these situations I didn’t hate my mom, I just wanted my way and I was still trying to understand the workings of the world. This period lasted for several years though, probably up until I became a teenager.
Believe it or not, right around the time I hit the teen years, my mom and I became extremely close. We would talk for hours; about school, work, friends, family. She was a great sounding board for ideas, or when my friends were annoying me or hurting my feelings. In turn, she seemed to enjoy that I was able to supply her with a daily fix of adult conversation. Not that my dad didn’t also supply that, but I’m a girl so it’s different.
I’m not sure exactly when the next change came, but it was big and explosive. I definitely know I was at least seventeen when it started, and it carried into my eighteenth year. I’m still not quite sure if this is what started it, but I remember her being extremely unreasonable about my curfew and hanging out with friends, particularly guys.
I had just started grade twelve, and, being that I had always been an independent spirit, I was more than excited to be entering my last year and hopefully moving out soon after finishing. Anyways, there were two guys who were best friends. I’d been friends with them since the beginning of high school, but until that year, hadn’t really been close or even hung out with them. It just so happened that the three of us ended up in every single class together.
Now, I can’t explain my mom’s reasoning at all, but maybe it’s because she new I had a little thing for one of these guys, and was worried about my getting hurt or something. In any case, the first time I asked to hang out with them, her reaction, or should I say, over-reaction, seemed…well, insane.
First, I’ll talk about these two guys. Chance was tall, six feet three inches, and thin. What I refer to as stick thin. Hugging him was like hugging a girl, or a twig or something. Not much substance. His hair was blonde, and long, kind of like hockey hair. He was a very nice guy and shared my love of music. We both played guitar, and he knew some drumming too, so we often swapped stories and during that year, we started hanging out more and more to play duets or just rock our. At that point I was just starting to learn rock, whereas that was all he had ever played. I had started off learning classical guitar, which I must confess is still my favourite.
Tyler was dreamy. From the very first day I met him, I had harboured a secret crush. He wasn’t as tall as Chance, but at five feet eleven inches, was a lot taller than my own five feet two inches. He had broad shoulders and I could just imagine sinking into his arms and staying there forever. His hair was a dark brown, almost black, colour, and he also had longer, hockey style hair. And his smile. He had the most gorgeous, enchanting smile. Anyways, I’m getting distracted.
As I said, these guys were in all of my classes, so we started talking more, and one day, near the end of September, they asked if I wanted to come hang out. They were having a sleepover at Chance’s house that night.
I raced home after school that day and eagerly awaited my parents’ arrival home from work. I waited until we had eaten supper, then, as they got settled down in from of the television, I asked. And, to my knowledge, this was the major turning point in mine and my mother’s relationship during that time. There may have been small fights before, but my mom’s response to my question was so crazy that I’m not surprised I remember this as being the turning point.
My mom got a crazy look in her eyes and bit out, “What are you going to do with two boys?”
At first, I was shocked into silence. Than, my explosive temper took over and I started shaking and I managed to bite out, “Exactly. What do you mean what am I going to do with two boys? Exactly.”
Even my dad seemed taken aback. He frowned at my mom and said I could go. I’m sure that started an argument, because my mom glared a death stare at my dad and than stared hard at the tv.
I sure wasn’t going to wait around, so I took off. After that night though, the relationship between my mom and I was strained. I felt she didn’t trust me, which she showed to be true in the following months to come whenever I talked about going out or doing some other activity she didn’t seem to approve of.
Before our relationship could make one of its cyclic changes however, my mom received the news.


CARLA

I remember the day the doctors gave me the news. I hadn’t been feeling good for a few months and in March I had finally gone into the hospital for testing. It took them another month to do test after test, and now, in May, they were finally presenting me with a diagnosis. I hadn’t been expecting good news, but I definitely wasn’t expecting what they were about to tell me.
My doctor, a gray-haired, stooped old man, was accompanied by two other doctors whom I had seen several times throughout the testing processes.
“Carla,” the tall doctor with black hair and a tan, nodded at me. “I’m Dr. Manning, and this,” he gestured at the shorter doctor who had glasses from the seventies and looked completely ridiculous on a man with such a small face and frame, “is Dr. Riker. We’re ontologists.” He paused, letting that sink in. “We –“
My doctor, Dr. Fobe, gave a subtle cough and Dr. Manning stopped and nodded at him. Dr. Fobe took over, I suppose figuring I would feel better if I heard the news from him, “Carla, I’m very sorry. You have chronic myelogenous leukemia.”
I was very shocked and immediately started shaking. After several minutes, I was starting to calm down enough to understand my options. Chronic myelogenous leukemia is most common in adults, but there is a very good chance of surviving my taking imatinib, which is a drug that can be taken orally. Unfortunately, there is a chance of becoming almost immune or intolerant of the drug, in which case a bone marrow transplant followed by fairly intensive chemotherapy and radiation must follow.
I went home in a daze. Luckily the kids were still in school and Mark was at work, so I had time to myself. I hadn’t mentioned my tests or suspicions with anyone in my family, not even Mark, so I also had time to figure out how I would break the news.
Even though I was thinking solely of my diagnosis, it was like I had separated from my body, because I remember that I calmly went about cleaning the bathrooms and preparing supper. I even remember what I made: marinated steak, with a lipton onion potatoe mix, and a lush, green salad, complete with beans, carrots, and peppers.
I remember kicking myself all through the evening, telling myself I had to tell my family, because I had choices to make, and my family deserved to know. I procrastinated, which, by the way, I am very good at, and finally, as everyone was getting ready to bed I called my three kids and husband into the kitchen.
“I have something to tell you. Please sit.” I remember almost panicking, because no one seemed particularly worried. Annoyed, if anything. And I remember thinking, why is this happening? Why do I have to tell them?
I gulped and plunged in, mentioning my visit to the doctor because of my frequent feelings of sickness, and the following tests, and finally the diagnosis and prognosis. I watched the faces of the people I love turn from indifference to worry, to panic and disbelief.
For the next week, my family and I gathered every night to discuss what I should do: the drugs which were not a cure-all, or the bone marrow transplant, which has a fairly high failure rate. I had requested a couple weeks off work, and mostly sat around, staring into space and thinking of my life; my husband, children, and the future I had wanted to share with them.
On about day five after my diagnosis, I worked up enough gumption to go grocery shopping, and I ended up buying ingredients to bake a cake from scratch, something I had never done, being too busy with work, and motherhood.
As I was pushing the cake pans into the oven, I heard the door open, and Sage had run into the kitchen. She stopped short when she saw me and tears started pouring out of her eyes. She started towards me and shook a piece of paper in my face. “I’m a match! Mom, I’m a match, I can be your donor!”
I remember the sudden horror that had rushed into my heart. I did not want my daughter going through the process of a bone marrow donation, but I think I knew right away that nothing I could do or so would change her mind. I have a very stubborn girl.
I remember when she was thirteen and we had gone on vacation to Mexico. Each of the kids got to choose an activity and we all had to go, and, hopefully participate. Matt and Drake and chosen simple water activities like scuba-diving and a boat ride along the coast. Sage, however, had wanted to go zip-lining. I had secretly looked into it, and kids were allowed to go at this place near the resort we were staying at, but still, no one else was interested, and, although I was, I wasn’t ecstatic about letting my children zip-line across a valley.
Mark and I took her aside one day and tried to talk her into something else, we even tried bribing her. But she was staying strong on the whole zip-lining thing, and wouldn’t waver. We did end up zip-lining, and I have to say, it was one of the best experiences of my life.
Anyways, knowing my daughter’s stubbornness, I still tried for over a week to talk her out of it, saying I’d probably just try the drugs, see how things went with that. Eventually, like on that trip in Mexico, she got her way. I was getting worse, and even the doctors were starting to highly recommend the transplant. Sage. My lifeline.

SAGE

Even though my bone marrow donations were the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced in my life, the fact that I was saving my mom’s made it all worth it. I know that sounds very cheesy, but every time I went in, I thought only of mom, and it made the pain feel good. I didn’t relish it, mind you, but a life without my mom would be much more painful than the extraction of my bone marrow.
As I mentioned, our relationship changed again around that time. I’m sure it would have got better in any case, but this crisis speeded things along. My mom and I started spending more time together. There was no more yelling, just talking. I got to know my mom better in those days than I ever had before, and I learned a lot about her. She is strength and courage. I am so proud of her.
It’s funny how tragedy can change a person or, in our case, a family’s life. We started doing more things together, like sitting down at the table to eat and chat. We designate one night a week to play games or watch a movie.
I guess I should mention that after I had secretly had myself checked to see if I could donate my bone marrow, the rest of my family did too. I was the only match. I was my mom’s lifeline.
The transplants were very hard on my mom, with the chemotherapy and radiation treatments as well. There were, and still are many touch and go times. She’s still undergoing chemotherapy, but her body seems to have accepted this bout of bone marrow.
She is not out of the clear, but my family has high hopes, and with all that optimism and support backing her, how can she fail?
I love my mom more than anything in the world, and if I had to do it over, I would. I would donate or do anything I could in order to help her. This experience has cemented our family relationship, and even better, it has helped to expand and grow my relationship with the most amazing woman I know.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 29.01.2010

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