The 7th Floor

"Good morning, what would you like for breakfast," is usually the greeting you get when your staying over night somewhere that's not exactly home. But no, instead they greet you with needles at 4:00 in the morning while introducing themselves...

Time seems to pass a little slower there, especially on the most beautiful days. It just makes you more anxious to leave and more grateful for time when your out. Especially when you go habitually.

The hospital. A place I wish upon no one. When I go its usually when I'm having a mild flare, which is usually when I need more than just day to day maintenance medication. Something so strong that it can stop lupus; that treatment usually being chemo. I know, when people hear the word chemo they automatically think, "OH NO CANCER," but no there are various types of chemo such as any other drug.

I usually get this chemo treatment on the 7th floor of the hospital. The chemo floor, for lupus patients, cancer patients, even some people receiving bone marrow transplants for sickle cell. Seeing people of all ages, different races, so sick, far sicker than me, was so heart breaking. I felt out of place. I constantly asked y nurses when I would be leaving? What was I doing on this floor? I wasn't supposed to be on This floor. I cant possibly be That sick, I didn't look like those people,... did I?

One night, on the 7th floor, I woke up to chaos. Doctors and nurses running to a woman in distress in the room next door to me. She was screaming to death. Literally screaming to her death. A mid aged woman, hair barely even grayed; I'd seen her briefly leave her room a few times when her family would come visit, had passed away from all the trauma the radiation caused her already frail body. When my nurse came to my room shortly after that I asked her what happened, she couldn't say much but she did tell me the lady from next door is now at peace. Hearing her die made me realize I'm more alive than ever. I realized I was here to get better, it didn't mean I was dying, unless I chose to die.

I stayed on the 7th floor for two weeks out of a two month hospital stay. I would sometimes think I was in an insane asylum. I even asked my nurse once if I was on the crazy floor, literally. Some of the people on that floor didn't know how to filter their emotions at such a low point, they were literally going crazy. One night this really elderly man in the room across the hall from me literally snatched out his i.v., ran out of his room with his gown on and made a run for the exit yelling that he was dying and chemo was only slowing down the process... Yes, that's the night I questioned the nurse. Some people can't see that there will be better days. At times like that, it does seem a little impossible, you just have to fight, stick it out to see those days will come.

Being on that traumatizing floor taught me so much. It taught me to be grateful. Seeing people that couldn't even feed themselves, or wash their own faces, it made me so much more grateful. When I leave that floor its like crossing the finish line of a race. I made it; through the needles, the procedures, the tears, the "bad news."

I have now been off chemo for nine months. That's the longest time in four years I have not had to receive chemo therapy. I pray to God it stays that away, I'm trying to stay as far away from the 7th floor as possible...