Muppet News Alert: Onward to Phase 2!

We sometimes have serious discussions about Muppets — don’t act so shocked, you guys do, too – and Jules believes she’s Bert or Kermit (which makes Randy the Cookie Monster or Ernie, a caricature a bit too close for comfort, especially on the sweet side).

Somewhere between a necessary dream and the desire to be solid and serious adults, the Muppets taught us things by teaching each other. Bert would nudge Ernie to pay attention to details, buckle down, and live in the real world. Ernie would tickle Bert, make funny faces, and remind him not to take himself too seriously, especially when the games were make-believe.

In the weeks after we learned about Julie’s Leukemia, Randy earned a junior oncologist badge, spending hours in serious and stupid surfing, trying to make sense of things he could barely grasp, looking very Bert-like (constipated with worry and despair). This week, when Julie’s blood tests came back and were posted to her portal, she played the same game, becoming an amateur hematologist, interpreting the mysteries of cell size and density while we waited for the more-definitive results from her bone-marrow transplant. The signs were speaking, she thought, implying bad news.

We were both wrong. Wrong to disbelieve in Panda-powered magic, love, prayers, and compassion from family and friends, and – frankly – wrong to underestimate Julie’s badassitude. The secret of the Muppets isn’t that either way is wrong, but that we need one another to find a balanced path, some way to negotiate the weird world that’s a mixture of existential dread and fantastic and wonderful mysteries. We have to hope.

All our news is good, in other words, and we have made a vow that we’ll break at least a hundred times in the next six months: To put our faith in things outside of our control and understanding, accept the day for what it is, and continue to bushwhack through toward a better tomorrow. The highlights:

·         Although the deeper, genetic read of Julie’s biopsy is still out (which looks at “how” things are developing within the bone marrow and how mutations are expressing themselves), the presence of leukemia in Julie’s bone marrow is so low that we can move straight into consolidation on schedule. Our oncologist just about squealed in happiness when she told us today.

·         Julie will be admitted early Wednesday morning after labs and an oncology consult for five days (not 28!) of consolidation chemotherapy. (Remember, that chemo is only one half of the cocktail she was on while in induction.) She’ll then have 6-8 weeks of recovery at home (along with bloodwork, transfusions if needed, and other prep for the bone-marrow transplant).
 

·         This will be repeated one more time, followed by the transplant in mid- to late-summer. Although that’s a long and intense undertaking with an arduous recovery time, Julie will have time to regain her strength, listen to music, birds, and watch her perennial garden grow before heading in! (Ernie will get to play in the dirt since she can’t be around the critters growing in the soil while her white blood cells are low.)

·         So many of you have asked what help we might need, and we are forever grateful to you! At the moment we can’t think of anything. This is Ernie talking, but I sincerely believe you are helping, pulling together in mysterious ways, meeting us where we are, but not leaving us there (to cop a line from my harm-reduction friends). We are learning to accept help – and will continue to need it – via the gratitude hack, a recognition of how lucky we are to know the world we’re in together, to have met one another, and to know so many loving people.   

So onto phase II!

*hugs*

Bert & Ernie