To Hell With You

“But all alone his blood runs thin and doubt, doubt comes in” Hadestown

I watched Hadestown last weekend, a musical spin on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. It was the day after I got the bloodwork result. While I’m more tempted to sing you a couple of the songs or give my critical review of the Tony award winning musical, I don’t think that’s why I write here or why anyone read. 

On my bloodwork it was determined I don’t have any reason to believe I have any new cancer or  too serious of liver damage. I just have some leukopenia and that is what’s causing some issues. There doesn’t seem to be any solution we’re going to approach or figure out and like my brain, it’s just going to be a sit and watch and wait monitoring situation so several medical appointments later… no real progress. They thought I would be more excited to hear that there was no cancer or evidence of disease and it was my doctor’s assistant who came by who hadn’t met me so I responded with a recent oft repeated line that I’m more afraid of aging than dying.

I am relieved but not as relieved as they hoped. But in the context of that confusion I watched a musical about someone who goes to hell to save their loved one but they aren’t able to make it back because they look back right before helping them escape. Whatever interpretation you want to give is fair game but surely there had to be some one who was trying to focus on looking forward. Looking back hurting the person you love the most and then hurting you because you hurt them… if that’s not hell I don’t know what is. 

That wasn’t the part that caught my eye, ear, or heart though. It was that the reason his loved one ends up in hell was because she was asking for help but he was too focused on his own song so did he put her in hell only to love her enough to almost get her out? That’s a tough story. I’ve obviously not been great at helping people join me through hell much less to hell and back. In those moments on a hospital bed where you turn away emotionally asking what’s wrong with my brain, you hope someone is listening and that they rescue you on the way to hell not to just get you to escape. 

The balance of relationships and health and ethics and consequences were singing through my head quite literally about when I have tried to figure out too much at once alone. I know I have good friends with the vast majority of the ones who were in the hospital room still available. I was talking to someone about money and they said that after a point it doesn’t matter how much money you make, just how many people will show up if something goes wrong at 3 o clock in the morning. I am thankful to have and be in that kind of relationship with good people.

I come from a background that says there is power in the blood and so as my athleticness give ways due to blood issues it sure seems to be true. But somehow despite the fact I am not generating power in the way that I used to. I just did a 5k that during my usual days (like a year and a few months ago) I likely would have finished in the top 3 I’m super disappointed that I came somewhere in the top 20. It’s funny almost 12 years ago, I was scared because the way I’d always defined myself by my brain was now at risk and I learned to define myself more by my running muscles. Now those are struggling and I’m lost a bit, that was easy to read in the last post. 

But today, I’m seriously considering signing up for more races, perhaps even return to a marathon for the first time in over a year for the Austin marathon. I can’t decide if to take it as my final lap. Then again when at 30 I was doing it as my final lap well I’ve done over a dozen since then so who knows. But how can I not do 42 kilometers at 42 years of age? 

I hadn’t blogged in a while but the last one helped me remember while I may not have listened well enough yet to stop hell being a factor in my life, I’ve had some good people who keep leading me out. But I guess that reminds me of a cheers from there “To the world we dream about and the one we live in now!” Oh and for my expert review, in case you were wondering, my favorite part was some great female trombone solos with some serious good slick slides up and down the scale.