“Oh, we’re half way there, oh, livin’ on a prayer.
Take my hand and we’ll make it I swear,
Oh, livin’ on a prayer.”
--Bon Jovi, 1984
“It’s my life, it’s now or never,
I don’t want to live forever,
I just want to live while I’m alive.”
--Bon Jovi, 1990
Music has always brought me great solace, from the hair bands of the 80’s Def Leppard and Bon Jovi (OK, those of you that know my college Def Leppard story, keep it to yourself please…) as some of the favorites, to David Crowder and Third Day in the more recent times with songs that we rock to on Sundays.
I was able to bookend my weekend with two concerts, one on Friday night in the tight quarters of East Andrews Upstairs where a friend's husband was playing drums in a Bon Jovi cover band, and then at a David Crowder/Third Day concert that sold out Gwinnett Civic Center Sunday night. Two totally opposite experiences that brought out very different sides of me. Both necessary as I prepared for testing at Emory Hospital today.
On Friday night as I joined the Buckhead crowd pushing the stage to the thumping of Bon Jovi’s pulse, the old feelings from my previous illness began to surface and reverberate inside me. I feel different from the crowd; although I’m sure it doesn’t appear that way to those around me. I’m wearing the blue jeans and boots with a fur lined coat and singing all the words to every song, my hair hot-rolled and teased, with giant gold earrings for the throw back to the 80’s occasion. But in my heart, I cannot push reality away, and the stark nature of life bites at the edges of my conscious as I sing. I am different and I feel different. I can’t seem to shut out what life can do on a moment’s notice, unexpectedly – like what some other Buckhead somethings are able to do so easily. To forget. How I wish I could – just for a moment - but that isn’t to be in my life.
I laugh at my overactive brain at times – the brain that cannot ignore reality. Oh, if you all only knew the games I played in my head trying to figure out how to get through the testing at Emory today. For the first time ever, I finally had to succumb to using sedatives to get through a test. I had to make peace with the fact that I am not even close to being superwoman nor do I have to be “strong” all the time. I just simply have to get through. (Lynne, you should be proud, I even embraced cognitive-behavioral techniques, a la Dr. Matheny, and you thought I would never say that! Kathryn, you can just skip over that last statement—I haven’t lost my way, I still worship Jung.)
There is an incredible peace that comes when you just let go. I was really moved in my car yesterday when the song David Crowder was belting out through my speakers said “One thing I have learned is that letting go gives me a better grip.”
“Letting go gives me a better grip…”
And letting go of complete and total control was something I had to do today as radiology at Winship Cancer Center locked my head and neck down into a cage attached to a board and pushed me into a tunnel/tube for 45 minutes with 1 ½” to spare from my face to the roof of the tube found glaring at me, instructing me not to swallow during the whole test except for brief periods when the banging and pounding of the machine subsided briefly or when they took a break to start the IV injecting dye into my veins.
“Letting go gives me a better grip…”
And in the letting go you realize the most important things in life: Susan’s hand rubbing my legs extending from the tube; Susan’s hand clasping my scared clammy hand and knowing…knowing Susan wasn’t going away no matter how bad it was in the tube; Susan taking charge and pressing the alert bell when the IV sack fell from my body and dangled in full weight from the needle stabbed in my arm – me, unable to move, yell or even swallow; and Susan was there. And that is the most important thing in life –
(On a side note, ever the girl, I still wore my red boots with my hospital gown. What a sight that must have been, high-heeled red boots protruding from the MRI machine. I will keep my personality no matter the conditions…and oh boy, Emory and Winship haven’t seen anything yet.)
To love unconditionally and fully and allow oneself to be loved, those experiences are the only ones that matter in this world. The rest is fluff.
I have a gift. I now know that fully at the age of 34 years.
There are a lot of trade-offs: I may have scars (thank God for plastic surgery—I’m figuring this all allows for a natural face lift!!); I may gain and lose weight with the changing of the seasons depending on how accurate my medications decide to be (in fact that is already happening – oh joy! – all of these are not easy things for an image conscious girl).
Life has a sense of humor…but the way I figure it, I’m getting this stuff over early --- the best is yet to come. Look out.
There’s a light at the end of this tunnel
There’s a light at the end of this tunnel
For you, for you
There’s a light at the end of this tunnel
Shinin’ bright at the end of this tunnel
For you, for you
So keep holdin’ on --Third Day, 2006
