The spark of creativity...

Back in the day, when bangs were sprayed two inches high, anything neon was the color of choice, faded blue jeans graced most lower bodies, and fanny packs weren't only for the elderly, I was hiding in my closet - pen and floral patterned journal in hand, writing out my deepest secrets. For a nine year old, these weren't exactly dark, more like how I snuck a call to my friend without asking my Mom or what boy I thought was a little cute. Pretty deep, huh? When I was ten, I was diagnosed with Acute Lymphocitic Leukemia while on vacation in Southern California. A month later, back in our hometown of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, I was writing even more. Prednisone cheeks, a rapidly balding head, and poor immune system (not to mention many trips to Vanderbilt clinic for treatments and procedures) freed up lots of time to read and write. It was then that I penned my first short stories. Understandably, many of these had to do with kids who had cancer.


One of my longer short stories, Hope, was completed around the time that my Mom's best friend's father came for a visit - published author, Joseph Gilmore. I came to him one evening, hands trembling, holding my story's manuscript. He graciously read it and critiqued it for me that very night. I came across that copy while unpacking some boxes recently and the memories that evening came flooding back again. I highly doubt he ever knew the impact that our conversation had on me or how it would encourage me to keep writing. He told me I had talent! Whether or not he was just being nice to that bald little girl or truly meant it, I will never know. Still - I believed him and continued to pen things onto paper for all the years that followed.


One of my favorite "cancer" books was Erma Bomback's book: I want to grow hair, I want to grow up, and I want to go to Boise." It holds many stories and antics shared by kids with cancer of all kinds. It also inspired me to start writing some of my memories. I never knew what I would do with them, but they were therapeutic to write.


So, without further ado - here is one that I penned right after I turned twelve. (Note - I did clean up the spelling and grammar a bit and my writing style has changed a LOT since then, but I was twelve! :) )


 You Want Me to Swallow That??

After living a sheltered life of liquid antibiotics, liquid Tylenol, liquid decongestants, and basically liquid everything, one can only imagine how my eyes about popped out of their sockets when nurses brought in my first set of pills. All I could think of to say was, "You want me to swallow that?" I figured that either they were playing a really mean trick on me or else my sheltered liquid existence had presently come to a screeching halt. Sadly, it was the latter.

Apparently the extent of knowledge that nurses acquire goes beyond basic medicine, and includes dabbling in the art of creative pill-taking. When it became evident that I wasn't going to be able to swallow those pills, a nice solution was presented - ice cream! Actually, it was sherbet, to be exact. Slip those annoying little suckers into a spoon full of lime flavored goodness and down they glide. This concept worked great until Prednisone.

My dad called it the "pregnant zone," sort of like the twilight zone, only involving an unnaturally massive appetite. Prednisone causes one to become a regular eating machine. All I wanted to do was eat everything in sight! I suppose that was a good thing since we were told that if I didn't eat whenever I was hungry, I could have developed an ulcer. Our doctor told my family about a two-year old who had polished off a dozen hard boiled eggs and still wanted more! The flustered, and somewhat worried, mother called the doctor, wondering what to do. The doctor, completely not alarmed, asked if she had any more eggs. Since she did not, he suggested she make a run to the store!

Back to the sherbet...one of the many downsides of Prednisone (the drastic mood swings and weight gain wont be discussed here) was that it tasted terrible!!! Even if I swallowed it in one gulp, the taste of the pill merely touching my tongue was unbearable! My dear aunt, we will call her "Aunt L", provided a wonderful tip. She suggested coating the pill in butter, so it would glide down easier and not taste so bad. So, I bet you can guess what I did everyday at pill-taking-time. I would sit down with my glass of 7-up, a butter tub, and a handful of pills.

One day, I was doing my daily ritual of pill taking. I had buttered my pills and taken all of them, except the Prednisone. Well, unfortunately it was one of those dreaded days that I didn't swallow it fast enough. Gross! I made a fast run to the refrigerator and grabbed the first thing that I saw, the sweet pickle jar. I opened it up and took a big swig of the juice. As disgusting as it may sound, it took away the taste instantly! From then on, along with my glass of 7-up, butter tub, and pills, was a jar of pickle juice.

Chemotherapy experts know that not all pills are as small as others. Take Methotrexite, for instance - even though I had to take twelve of them in one sitting, they were so small that it didn't really matter. (I did, however, sing the chorus of "Mary had a little lamb" and other such juvenile tunes in between pills to "clear my passageway" for the next one. It was, of course, only pointless stalling.)

The first "big" pill that I had to take, which really wasn't all that large, I took in my initial hospital stay. It was the Colase pill - one of those red, gel-capped ones that are supposed to easily slide down. Well, in my pill-phobic mind, that pill was going to get in my mouth, turn sideways, block my throat, and make me choke to death! It didn't occur to me that I was in the hospital, the best place to choke. So, starting at 8pm, I held that pill, rolling it and squishing it, trying desperately to make it smaller. My dad was with me that night and was being extremely patient, waiting sitcom after sitcom for me to take it. After three hours, I still couldn't take that scary red gelcap. Eventually, I just wimped out, so they brought me in the liquid. "It has comes in liquid?" I wondered why they didn't just start with that option! You may think that would be a miniature glimpse of heaven to me, which is what I thought, as well - until I had a drop or two. Those drops of blue fire burned everything they touched. (One of my friends in the "clinic gang," which I will tell more about later, called it hot juice. No kidding!) The nurses improvised with a plan C. They poked a hole in the pill and drained its inside liquid into a large cup of chocolate ice cream with whipped cream, chocolate syrup, and chocolate chips. Although it might sound tasty, it was awful!! A tip: Never put these types of medication into chocolate, it just isn't an efficient cover for the bad taste.

The saga of the Colase pill didn't end with that night. The following night, my grandmother stayed with me in the hospital and she helped talk me through taking it. It was a much easier task, since, for once, the liquid solutions were definitely not options! When I finally swallowed the monster, I was so excited that I nearly ripped my IV out in my plunge for the telephone. I had to tell mom and dad that I had swallowed that dang pill!