It's All Beginning

C is coming home... but that's just the start of it all

I'm typing this on my laptop in the dining room on the farm table, which is the first major piece of furniture that C and I ever bought. My dear friend Anisse came over yesterday, and we spent about eight solid hours decluttering and tidying the house to prepare for tomorrow's deep clean. We're hiring a team to vacuum, mop, wipe everything down with Clorox, and otherwise prepare the home for C because he still has zero white blood cells.

The house has to be pristine. No plants inside. No opening windows. No take-out food for him, and so on. It's going to be an isolated time for the next few months. We also did this in 2023 after he received his first bone marrow transplant, and it feels surreal that we're doing it all over again, only two years after the first one.

I took some photos of the house to send to him. When I sent the photo of the dining room, he joked, “We have a table there? Since when?” It's true; the dining table is usually covered in unopened mail and random bits and bobs. Anisse and I wound up with eight full garbage bags and five bags of recycling. (It's amazing when you purchase a home; there is a certain phenomenon of the home filling up with as much stuff as the space allows.) We have so many books, both purchased and mailed from publishers. We have cups and cups filled with pens and pencils simply because I'm a writer and I love stationery.

When I look around, I wonder what it will feel like to have him at home again. All in all, he's been hospitalized for two months, which shouldn't feel so long, or at least not as long as it does—but I'll be so thrilled to see him.

I washed Daphne (our dog) yesterday, which I'd never done before by myself. I clipped her nails, which I'd also never done by myself. Having C gone always makes me realize how much we need each other and how much we rely on each other for so many things.

I've been away from the hospital for the last week because of a cold that I caught somewhere, and I wasn’t allowed to see him until a week after I was completely symptom-free.

I want to hold him.

I want to tell him that things will be okay.

Obviously, we’re not certain of any of that.

He's coming home because the doctors recommend that he receive some time in a familiar place before he gets his stem cell boost. The stem cell boost has approximately a 5 to 10% chance of working. If it doesn't work, or if it only works a little bit, he'll go full-fledged into a second bone marrow transplant with a different donor than last time.

I can't believe we're doing this again.

I know I keep saying that.

I say it in my journal, I say it to my friends, I say it to Daphne, I say it in my head: It's happening again. His mother is arriving in the midst of a very rare snowstorm from New Orleans. She'll arrive and help us for however long we need her.

After a person receives a bone marrow transplant, the next 100 days are crucial. Everything has to be sanitized. The bed sheets have to be changed every other day. The towels have to be washed every day or every other day. He cannot have berries, raw vegetables, and a whole slew of other things that I'm sure he wants to eat. He still hasn't had sashimi since he was first diagnosed with bone marrow cancer.

All of these things feel both overwhelming and inevitable. There's nothing I can do to make it not happen; it has to happen.

Yesterday, I worked myself so hard, even with Anisse’s amazing help, that I had an absolutely horrid night of sleep. My body was simply too exhausted, too frazzled, and too distressed to be able to sleep more than 45 minutes or an hour at a time.

I woke up and vacuumed.

I cleaned the dust bunnies under the bed.

I used a bottle brush to try and dust every blade of the fan in my office, which is the only way to clean it. You can't take off the front and simply suck out the dust with a vacuum cleaner, which is what I wish could happen. I did this yesterday without wearing a mask, which was absolutely stupid. And when I turned on the fan, a cloud of dust spewed out onto my face and onto my clothes. I’m hideously allergic to dust, and so I couldn't stop coughing and sneezing for the next 24 hours. (I suppose that didn't help my sleep either.)

I wish I knew how to do this better.

I'm doing my best. I'm trying so hard. We're all trying so hard for this person that we love, for this person who is so wonderful and gentle and clever and smart and paints birds and Pokemon for the nurses on his unit.

He's coming home. I'm so glad, but I don't know what will happen afterward.

I wish I did. Or maybe I don't.

My husband’s white blood cell count is currently at zero after eight weeks of hospitalization. A great deal of anxiety and work lies ahead. Please consider supporting us and this newsletter by purchasing a paid subscription to REASONS FOR LIVING with Esmé Weijun Wang. And if you are a paid subscriber, thank you so much. You help us keep the lights on.

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My husband’s white blood cell count is currently at zero after eight weeks of hospitalization. A great deal of anxiety and work lies ahead. Please consider supporting us and this newsletter by purchasing a paid subscription to REASONS FOR LIVING with Esmé Weijun Wang. And if you are a paid subscriber, thank you so much. You help us keep the lights on.