Our birthdays fall eleven days apart, which at this point in our lives neither Jacob nor myself really celebrate anymore. Although the way people ask you about birthdays makes you think every adult in the United States does outrageous things for their birthdays. Everyone wants to know what you are doing, and what the other person got you to celebrate. I couldn't even tell you the last time we did gifts for each other on our birthdays, but the person always gets to pick out what they want for dinner. Predictable, but exactly the way we like it. But when we tell others, there is always a look of disappointment with a dash of pity, but honestly what are all these adults doing on their birthdays?
But really this time of year brings back a lot of memories from 2004, which ironically has now been 10 years past. Although Jacob and I have talked in little bits of all that turned our lives upside ten years ago, I don't feel we have ever really been real with anyone. So here it is, the truth of what happened 10 years ago.
In July of 2004 I tried to donate my blood at a blood drive. I was turned away, as having too low of iron. As someone who gave blood 3-4 times a year that had never been an issue before, but didn't alarm me too much. In August 2004 during my regular annual checkup, my blood work came back with significantly low platelets. I was sent to a hematologist that same afternoon. All of this was happening in my hometown, and I was attending my undergrad in Kalamazoo, so I eventually talked the doctors into sending my labs and files to a hematologist in Kalamazoo. The same day I was going to see my new doctor in Kalamazoo, Jacob called with some news. His unit had orders to deploy that November. It was during that very phone call I decided to keep my health battles to myself.
August and September had me in and out of doctors' offices twice a week. I acted as if it were nothing. To be honest, at that point it was nothing. No answers. I was given iron transfusion, blood transfers, iron pills, and steroids. I was subjected to needle pricks twice, sometimes three times a week. But few knew. I was Amanda Cade after all. I was just as strong as anyone else. I was not going to let anyone know I was weak. Being sick, to me, meant I had a weakness. A weakness I didn't have answers to, and neither did anyone else, so I didn't want people to ask questions. I was in the middle of a marching season, taking 24 college credit hours, and working third shift. All the while facing appointment after appointment where they didn't know what was wrong. Going through test after test. Feeling sicker and sicker as the time went on. I had adverse reactions to transfusions, my nose bled all the time from the steroids, and the tests they were giving me were becoming more and more serious.
My family and I kept it from Jacob. My room mates knew only the basics. No need to concern anyone over nothing. Jacob called daily with reports on what he was being trained in. Any news he had, which is really nothing, if you have ever dealt with the military. We had to work on getting all of his things taken care of stateside. Where would he store his items, what was worth saving, what needed to be shipped or taken home, power of attorney papers had to be signed, we had to plan his one week leave he would be granted before he deployed.
October came with still no news from my doctors. My family was now a little more heightened than they had been before. My blood was not fixing itself, and there didn't seem to be an end to my weekly visits. The big final push for an answer required a bone marrow biopsy. My mom came up and drove me to and from the appointment. It was my first visit in a chemotherapy room. They had me wait in there while my cocktail of pain meds worked through my body. I remember the rocking chair, and that there were a ton of "old" people watching old black and white reruns. The biopsy was one of the most painful things I had ever experienced up until that point. I had the biopsy on a Thursday, and I was at marching band practice the next day, as we had a game on Saturday. Nothing was wrong, besides the huge hole in my hip that was covered by gauze, and surgical tape. No time for anyone to feel sorry for me, or most of all, no time for anyone to figure out something was wrong.
Jacob was getting more and more information as each day went on. Although he was trained as an Airborne Rigger, they didn't need a whole lot of those over in Iraq. There were talks and trainings on them doing Infantry jobs, something they were all trained in during basic training. In 2004 everyone knew what it meant to be Infantry in the Iraq War. He also had called me one day with a story. One of his buddies, or maybe it was a buddy of a buddy, had a fiance who was in a terrible car crash while he was deployed. She was placed on life support, and given little time to live. The Army would not allow him to come back, as she was his fiance, not wife. Jacob's question that I can hear today as clearly as he asked it "What if something happens to you?" I remember choking back tears, as we still hadn't told him exactly what was going on with my health. Two days before my biopsy we talked of the options we had, all the while I said nothing more on how sick I had really become.
The biopsy results were delivered the next week, and now waiting in the waiting room in Kalamazoo was my mom and step dad from Zeeland, and my dad and Gary from Chicago. It was there sitting in the waiting room I realized this was pretty serious. I still only had a child' mindset when it came to trying to comprehend what these results could mean, but seeing my family there in the cramped and drab waiting room, reality came crashing down on my like a large boulder. To top it all off, I was keeping a secret from those in that room. I was making secret plans to elope. I was keeping secrets from pretty much everyone in my life. My 20 year old self was about to collapse.
The results as we all know was that there were no answers. I had tested negative for all that they could test me on. I would be diagnosed with ITP. All of my parents were in the room as they went through what it all meant, and what life would be like going forward. I don't remember very much of what was said. I was too busy trying to figure out my secret life, and how I was going to move through the next rather large event, since this one seemed to have concluded itself.
Over the next two weeks Jacob and I worked out our plans, and then it was time to talk to our families. Eloping was not on my dream list when I was growing up, so again this was on a needs to know basis. We told so few. Only our family would attend the ceremony.
There was a lot more than I ever imagined that came along with deciding to elope. Jacob and I were doing it because we felt it was best, mostly because of his concern for my health, after we let him in on some of what was going on. I was not going to change my name. I would continue my undergrad. We figured how much spousal pay he would be allotted, and we set up an account neither of us could touch. If the case the marriage didn't work we would split the account in half.
I wore black to my wedding.
We didn't have marriage bands.
No one stood up with us.
We were babies.
10 years ago our lives were thrown into what should have a whirlwind of disaster. I am pretty sure if anything like those two life changing events were to happen to us at the age we are now, we would not have been able to bounce through life like nothing was wrong. I think the Lord gave us our struggles 10 years ago because he knew our young minds were not worldly enough to fully comprehend what the ramifications could be in the future. We took on each trial with only the outlook of 20 year olds, something we could never do again, as we do not see life as a 20 year old anymore.
We lost a lot of friends during this process. Some of it was my instinct to keep my sickness quiet. Others did not understand why we decided to elope. Many felt they knew best, and it was because I had become pregnant, that is why the hasty wedding. Although I have since become very open about my illness, few knew what it was like to go through the process. Maybe I made a bad decision keeping my battles quiet, but at the time I felt it was best to keep Jacob's mind on his job, and not worry about other things. We were asked to deal with adult issues with the mentality of young, very young, adults.
As crazy as it seems it seems it feels freeing to finally write it all down. Jacob and I have been questioned, looked down upon, and removed from some people's lives, because of our decisions. But at the time, what 20 year old really cares about all that?
So here's to 10 more years. Here's hoping we will never have face life changing decisions like that, especially so close together. November 5th is bitter sweet for us. It is our first anniversary, but it is a date in time that reminds us of a past that changed the direction of our lives.
For the better I like to think.
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