Girl With a Ponytail, Gift of Perspective

A runner with a long ponytail gave me a jolt of appreciation for what I was doing: running about four miles before it got hot. It was during an August heatwave, approximately 7:30 in the morning. I really wanted to go to a tennis clinic at 10:30, because I love tennis so much, but I had already played the day before and figured I had gotten enough sun. Plus, duh, the heatwave. Some of my friends were going to go, but I was using common sense for a change. After the run, I would do a short walk with my senior dog, who can’t go too far. Then, yoga at the Y.

Why the appreciation after I saw the ponytail girl?

Because my image of myself as a runner is tied to having a ponytail. When I was bald during treatment, I once woke up in my hospital bed from a dream in which I was running down the street. My ponytail waved around behind me in the breeze. The dream was a mixed bag. It made me sad because I had no hair and was stuck in the hospital. It gave me hope that maybe it was a sign that I could do it again.

When I saw the ponytail girl, I thought, “Wow, here I am, 12 years after my last transplant, running around the lake.” (By “the lake,” I mean the one at Mount Holyoke College, in South Hadley, Mass., across the street from me.)

I believe people who say they appreciate every day after cancer treatment. I don’t think they would make it up. Though I am not sure how those people could have a good day every day. Don’t they ever wake up on the wrong side of the bed? To be human seems to me to mean having all sorts of moods. Maybe they are making a generalization and don’t mean to be taken quite so literally.

Having survived means I get to be me

The prize for having survived is that I get to be regular old me. Sometimes that means I am anxious about ridiculous things. Sometimes I’m grumpy, sometimes in a good mood. The prize is that I don’t always have to think about how great it is that I was able to hold down a meal. That I can go for a walk (or run) without always thinking “Yay, I was able to go for a walk (or run).”

The bonus comes on days such as that hot one in August when the ponytail girl gave me a jolt of appreciation. It is like a strong cup of coffee that wakes you up, makes you see things more clearly. It put in perspective where I was and how far I had come.

Remembering the baby steps

If you are reading this from a place where you can’t do too much, I would like to remind you that 12 years ago I was in a coma. I “lived” in the hospital for more than three months after my fourth stem cell transplant. When I woke up from the coma, I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t talk. It took two nurses to turn me on my side. It was a big accomplishment to eventually get out of bed. It was hard to sit up in a chair. It was a big accomplishment to walk half the length of the nurses’ station without feeling faint. Gradually, slowly, I added on.

If you can’t do too much, try sitting in a chair and lifting one foot and then the other. If you can do a little more, walk some, and then, when you are up to it, walk some more.

Writing this helps me remember all those baby steps. That’s how I had to do it. I don’t have a great ponytail like that girl. I’m too old (haha) to look good in such long hair anymore. But I have a short ponytail, and I’m running. The ponytail girl sent me back to the day of that dream, in that hospital bed, and made me appreciate that I had come a long way.