The year was 1991. I was lying flat on my back in a cavernous
room like a mausoleum, where the linear accelerator was located. It was
day one of a three-day course of total body irradiation, which would strip
away my own bone marrow and, subsequently, my own immune system. This process
would prepare me for an autologous bone marrow transplant (ABMT). I lay
in this room in the high pitched hum of machines and the antiseptic smell
of the hospital and was struck by how much it all seemed like a horror
movie.
Looking back at that dark time, I marvel at how I seemed
always to be drifting back to memories of my “normal everyday life”, to
life before lymphoma. I was totally exhausted, wasted by chemotherapy.
But even so, I was always thinking, always wondering, always planning what
to do next, as if driven by some natural instinct. I credit this active
thinking attitude, together with the support of loving family and friends,
for the positive things that eventually emerged from this dreadful experience.
This article describes some ideas and techniques that
I, as a clinical psychologist, developed during the course of becoming
a lymphoma patient—and, ultimately, survivor. They include how to sustain
hope and be self-supporting, and how to think straight and be a self-observer.
All are skills I still try to practice every day, both as a patient and
as a psychologist.
Hope
Can Spring Eternal, With a Little Help
