Thanksgiving 2020: The Wurse Files

"I’m — thirsty."

Barely audible; that couldn’t possibly be a sound from my own mouth? I hear the scratchy, froggy tone that is completely foreign to me. The words prickled my tongue. I mean this quite literally; there is no moisture in my mouth to successfully utter those two simple words. The “I’m” raked and pulled “thirsty” by my gravel-tongue, across the gummy, sticky flypaper deathtrap that is the roof of my mouth. The second the word thirsty scraped its way out — I was gone.

True enough: I’m dreaming. 100% stuck, but this also feels 100% real — and in this moment… I’m running. Running for my dear life. Helplessly and hopelessly searching for a water source, that doesn’t seem to exist. This desert is sweltering — I’m completely alone—and running in this heat, out of pure will, determination and outrageous stubbornness.

Keep running.

Find water — or die.

Those are my only choices before me. My insides are SCREAMING. And when I say screaming, it does not feel like personification, because I can feel every organ, every bone…and while I’m silently and manically running in this current state, I swear to you I can hear them crying out! My kidneys have transformed into spiky Minesweeper balls (the old ass PC game from the 90’s) that are piercing right into some hellscape that includes both my lower spine and the ever-so-sensitive hipbone. On both sides of my body at the very same time, because my body likes to be symmetrical…and fair, when it comes to pain distribution. My spiky-piercing, steel kidneys are somehow symbiotically shrinking, or shriveling rather. Withering away, while the points remain Kitana-sharp…and dry. Sandpaper-dry, Kitana-sharp internal organs. It makes no fucking sense! How is everything inside me shriveling—contracting—but stabbing all at the same time?

I feel like I’m seeing water ahead in the distance, but I’m stuck — running as fast as I can in place — going absolutely nowhere in this desert.

That smell.

That fucking smell is so familiar. So familiar I can taste it. It’s mildly sweet on my Sahara-tongue. It does not bring any relief. But it does bring reality.

I know that scent. I know that taste.

I’ve passed out…again. Now — where the fuck am I and am I okay?

My hearing is starting to change — instead of the constant static-whirring, I now hear voices. That’s when I hear my sis, “She has cancer!” She screamed it, in a panicked, high-pitched squeak of a comparison to her normal voice-sound. I haven’t fully come-to yet, so my words belong to the in between state I’m currently cemented to. I flicker my eyes open. It feels damn-near blinding as I see the bright fluorescent lights above when Sissy continues, “She needs water!” The best three words I’ve ever heard in my life. So, where the fuck am I — and am I okay?

There’s a very, very large man (Thank Bloody Hell!) on my left holding me onto him. My lifeless, cadaver-weight-body is flailed against his massive arm, which has me secured against the entire right side of his body. The left side of his body stabilizing the both of us by leaning propped against a staircase, that we were at the bottom of. I try to look up at his face, four inches away from my own. This godsend of a very large human could not meet my eye. But, I could see the inflection of his genuinely sweet, caring and worried face, or at least the small sliver I was able to connect with. He did not want to showcase the incorrect emotion. He wasn’t hiding his face for himself — but rather, out of respect for me. Somehow it dawned on me at that moment that he recognized this whole situation was a much bigger issue for me— for my terrified sister!

That’s when the layers of reality start peeling back further. My sis is maybe a foot away from the two of us, laid up across three stairs or so…so, the three of us are very fucking cozy! In this small stairwell area, which looks like it is about 10-feet away from the checkout line—I very obviously just passed out inside of.

Wow, that thing is a fuckin’ wooden corral, that checkout line…I just know my ass hit my head on the way down — or dramatically slid down the dividing wall, at the very least. I remember telling my sis I was thirsty…and then just blackness. No warning— just dropped like a box of rocks.

It’s Thanksgiving Day 2020. I stare over at the fake woodgrain checkout corrals. Human corrals… made for people. I’m still disoriented, but now very much aware of my surroundings. It was so overstuffed with last-minute holiday shoppers — there has got to be a solid two-hundred Lookie-Loos, craning their necks to get a good look at me. Clearly thrilled to have some live Turkey Day drama to discuss around the dinner table. “And we’re like so grateful for this beautiful meal—that we’re all healthy, unlike the woman with cancer at the grocery store. Oh my God! Just lost consciousness right there in front of the whole store! Just so sad. So grateful…let’s eat!” I mean, I can only guess what these shoppers were thinking that day, but there is no denying: Thanksgiving Day 2020 was the all too real ‘Thirst Trap’ I never asked for.

I used my very real need for water and relaxation as a dire excuse to get the hell away from the nightmare of onlookers. Back at the house, I took a quick gravity bong hit in the sink. A gift of marijuana-courage, so I can jab my needle-bruised stomach again with this sickeningly diabolical drug, that I desperately need. The grav-bong hit was a fun distraction for my cousins. As you can imagine, my family was a little frantic after hearing about the eventful ‘quick trip to the grocery store’. Everyone saw I was okay enough after drinking plenty of water (slowly but surely), a liquid IV (slowly but surely) and a massive direct hit of marijuana to the dome. So, the majority of the family went to the community pool. My mom and auntie (bio-mom) drank sparkling wine, cooked, and screamed at and over each other, until both passed out around 18:00.

I’m alone in the room, quietly finding the least purple-skinned area to grab and shove this sewing needle-thin sharp into my yellow-tinged stomach skin. This needle is so thin, it’s like it was made for babies! And yet, I’m talking myself into it, “You can do. Just do it…tiny ass, fuckin’ baby needle. Do it!” I’m also terrified because I know what happens once this drug penetrates.

I said what it felt like out loud one day, and it's dead-on to describe exactly what this drug is for…and how it works:

"These drugs feel like full-blown in-labor contractions, but rather than your vagina- you're being ripped apart from your fucking spine! Pulling healthy white blood cells from my bone marrow and expelling them into my bloodstream. There's not a beautiful baby at the end of this violent pain. Fuck this! Fuck this drug!"

Taken cohesively and purposefully as a co-drug with my chemotherapy. This drug is true torture that I desperately needed to survive. I didn’t understand how desperately at the time — but holy Fucksickle Sandwich I was about to find the fuck out! Patience y’all — have some water, hydrate with intention — and all will be #LeakedForAReason in due time.

Anyone out there that needs a bone marrow transplant or tapping for any reason, #1. God, I am so sorry. You. Are. Hurting. #2. Thank the fuck out of anyone that donates bone marrow because whomever gets through that pain — purely for someone else — deserves a fucking Purple Heart, a parade or I don't know, the key to the city or some shit. The point is, wow...y'all are unsung heroes. I was fighting for life, truly and honestly, and I still wanted to give up on taking those meds. Angels on Earth are Real.

Stainless steel mugs and water jugs: the very real story of how...and why I became a certified "Wurse"-carrier. That's right. Wurse. Water-Purse. 84 ounces, please.

Welcome to the #AY Domeverse.

#HydratedButHaunted