Some Girls Prefer Carnations: The Neutropenia Waltz

Saturday, June 7, 2014

The Neutropenia Waltz

My white cells are lower than last time, once again low enough that the neutrophils couldn't be counted. Hemoglobin is low, platelets are super low. But that's not very fun, is it? What is fun is The Neutropenia Waltz that I wrote and conducted in my head at 4 this morning. (My guts woke me up at 2 and I struggled for hours to go back to sleep.) What follows is an imaginary and fantastic orchestral debut that is sure to win me a Grammy.

Imagine a stately waltz, with the melody plucked in a call-and-response between the first violins and the cellos. The timpanis thunder on the word Neutropenia. I suppose a choir of some sort is required to convey the words, but I'm really not feeling or hearing a choir. A real musician could use these words to write the Waltz. I'd love to hear that Waltz.

The Neutropenia Waltz

F E C
1 2 3
In they come
Down I go
Try to eat
Sleep sleep sleep
Cells are beat
Neutropenia!

Blood is thin
Don't get sick
Feverish
Hospital
No no no
Neutropenia!

Slow rebound
Now I'm found
Time is short
F E C
1 2 3
Neutropenia!

6 comments:

UnknownJune 9, 2014 at 12:39 AM
I'm so sorry you are sick. I wish I could take your sickness on for you, even if only for a little while. So many people are on your team, Heather!!! I love you. Hang in there, babe.
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UnknownJune 9, 2014 at 7:26 AM
I wrote your poem out on a ragged piece of lined spiral paper and put it up in my cube when I got to work.
I wrote it in red--it seemed fitting.
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DadJune 9, 2014 at 1:31 PM
I wrote a waltz too. There is no orchestra. There might be a steel guitar though.

My Kid's Breast Cancer Waltz

She tells me
She’s tired
Her blood counts are low.
She goes to
The doctor
She calls Doctor O.
She’s fighting this battle,
No matter the cost.
And my kid
Does the breast cancer waltz.

Her friends are
Amazing
The party’s been set.
Her husband’s
A soldier
She’s lucky she met.
An over-achiever,
She never has lost
And my kid
Does the breast cancer waltz.

And oooooh...oooooh...oooooh
Don’t she look lovely.
And oooooh...oooooh...oooooh,
Don’t she show class.
And oooooh...oooooh...oooooh,
In three quarter only
Dance while
The band plays
And my kid
Beats this breast cancer’s ass.
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bethmJune 9, 2014 at 4:13 PM
Lovely Russ!
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AmiJune 14, 2014 at 2:09 AM
Now we know why Heather is such a wordsmith.

Funny though... It always came out as "Macarana" when I read Heather's "Neutropenia"
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Books I've read recently

TRUTH AND BEAUTY by Ann Patchett "'Grief isn't something to "be gotten through." It has no life of its own like that, it's just plain and simply there.'" and "History is strangely incomprehensible when you're standing in the middle of it."
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IN THE COMPANY OF CHEERFUL LADIES: No. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY NOVEL #6 by Alexander McCall Smith
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AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FACE by Lucy Grealy "Sooner or later we all have to learn the words with which to name our own private losses..." and "Part of the job of being human is to consistently underestimate our effect on other people..." and "Sometimes the briefest moments capture us, force us to take them in, and demand that we live the rest of our lives in reference to them."
WATER FOR ELEPHANTS by Sarah Gruen "Age is a terrible thief. Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back. It makes you ache and muddies your head and silently spreads cancer throughout your spouse."
THE HELP by Kathryn Stockett "'I have decided not to die.'" and "Oh, I just break down then. It's like two years a doing and trying and hoping all come out at once."
THE TENNIS PARTNER by Abraham Verghese "Would that I had the chance in my sons' lifetime and my own to one day explain to them all the forces that moved me."
THE BLUEST EYE by Toni Morrison "And then the tears rushed down his cheeks, to make a bouquet under his chin."
REMARKABLE CREATURES by Tracy Chevalier "My life led up to that moment, then led away again, like the tide making its highest mark on the beach and then retreating."
RAMONA QUIMBY, AGE 8 by Beverly Cleary "Mrs. Quimby smiled and said, 'I can tell you're beginning to get well when you act like a wounded tiger.'"
THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway "You see, Mr. Barnes, it is because I have lived so very much that now I can enjoy everything so well."
THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN by Kate Morton "The happiest folk are those that are busy, for their minds are starved of time to seek out woe." And, speaking of hospitals: "An irony that a place relying so heavily on routine should operate so resolutely outside time's usual rhythms."
THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins "Of course, the odds have not been very dependable of late."
THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS by Rebecca Skloot "That cancer was a terrible thing."
THE THIEF OF ALWAYS by Clive Barker "Was there some way...to take back the stolen years, and live them here, with the people who loved him, and whom he loved dearly in return?"
CUTTING FOR STONE by Abraham Verghese "The world turns on our every action, and our every omission, whether we know it or not." Best book I've read in a year

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Saturday, June 7, 2014

The Neutropenia Waltz

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