The story of my near death experience started on a Sunday night last January; three days after my second round of chemo. Let me take you back there…

My arms and legs tingle and my stomach somersaults in fear as I reach up to touch my hot, clammy face. I grab the thermometer from my bedside table and jab it at the underbelly of my tongue. Dammit! For the first time since I started obsessively checking on Thursday, the numbers on the digital screen crest above 38*.

My oncologist promised that if I started shooting up with my immune boosting drugs the day after chemo, instead of five days later, I could prevent another trip to the emergency room. I heeded her advice and took my new role as GMF junkie seriously. I would roll the icy refrigerated $250 vial between my palms to warm it up, streak an alcohol swab across my skin, load up my syringe, and pierce the needle deep into my stomach fold. Yet, in spite of my diligence, I STILL HAVE A FEVER? WTF?

Twenty minutes later, I give my name to a smiley woman at the front desk of The Cancer Agency and follow a nurse with puppy dog scrubs and squeaky orthopaedic shoes to a hospital bed. She pulls the curtain to give the illusion of privacy, and then fills up two Tabasco size jars and ten vials with my blood. I wonder if I have any left as I lie shivering in my feverish skin. Two hours and twenty warming blankets later, the doctor on call finally arrives with my test results.

“Good news”, she says, “your white blood cell count is within normal range.” She prescribes a dose of preventative antibiotics and tells me that I can go home.

Sophie (my support person/partner in cancer crime) looks at me with elation because I don’t have to go back into a sealed room. I want to match her enthusiasm, but I am so fevered that I can barely lift my head off the pillow. I feel like a 92 year old with Parkinson’s as I pull on my sweater, my coat, and the scarf that I use to cover the blinding white of my bald-head. Sophie pushes a wheelchair up to the bed and I gingerly step into it.

The doctor waves a cheery goodbye as Sophie pushes me down the hallway. En route, I see a water machine with plastic cups and ask her to stash some in her purse for me. During my recent hospital stay, I learned that drinking out of plastic vs. glass makes water taste less like it has been infused with the flavour of rusty nails. Sophie parks me by the wall, checks to see if anyone is watching, and then hustles over to the water dispenser.

As I stare down the hallway to make sure the coast stays clear, my vision gets fuzzier and fuzzier. I call out to Sophie with a high-pitched wail. “Help! Something is wrong. I can’t see.” I wonder if I am dying as punishment for stealing a few measly cups.

Sophie drops everything back on the counter and yells for help. The doctor runs up and crouches beside me as I tell her between sobs that I am going blind (my glasses are still on my nose – I double checked). She asks questions in an attempt to downplay my fear. A furnace of heat rips through my body and sweat drips out of every pore. I reach up to pull off my scarf to get some air and then everything fades to black.

When I open my eyes, I am back on my hospital bed as nurses strip off my clothes,  a blood pressure cuff clutches my right arm, and an icy draft floats across the layer of dried sweat that clings to my skin. Before I fade out again, I notice tears in Sophie’s eyes. The prick of an IV in my arm wakes me up the second time and I hear the doctor order one of the nurses to run my IV ‘wide open’. I shiver as the icy liquid surges up my veins.

I ask Sophie what happened. She tells me how my head fell and ricocheted off the back of the wheelchair. How she saw the whites of my eyes as my leg kicked out into nothingness. How sick I looked with sweat running from the top of my bald-head down to my pale collarbones. How the doctor didn’t even turn my wheelchair around as she yelled at the nurses for help and pushed me backwards into the room. How as the nurses stripped me and hooked me up to machines, she had pictured having to call my parents with tragic news.

“Don’t worry. I’m fine.” I say to her. “I promise.” The color slowly returns to her face.

I don’t have the heart to tell her that I am secretly a little bummed that I missed the most exciting part of the night.

Why couldn’t I have witnessed my near death experience from the corner of the room as I looked benevolently down on my sick self? Why couldn’t I have seen a bright light and had a chat with some angels before they convinced me to turn around because I had so much left to accomplish on Earth? At least then I would have a good story.

Two IV bags of saline, 3 Tylenol and a consult with the doctor later, Sophie expresses concern about taking me home. What if this happens again? What if she can’t get me medical attention soon enough and I stop breathing? The doctor smiles indulgently and says that my blood pressure has now stabilized and she doesn’t see any reason why I should faint again.

It turns out that my near death experience wasn’t that near death after all.

Maybe you can relate to that first moment of awareness. When you open one eye and search your dark bedroom for clues. You wonder why it’s so quiet. Did you forget to set your alarm? A rush of panic whistles into your gut. Then you remember that it’s Saturday.

You grin and burrow under your duvet as you leaf through the memory of your dream. You pick up the cell phone on your nightstand to call your lover, just so you can hear his scratchy morning voice. But as you continue your ascent into alertness, you remember. You can’t call. It’s over. Your stomach pulses with pain. You lie there, immobilized by sadness, as you try to process the reality of another day without him.

A year ago, as I counted down to my first day of chemotherapy, that same feeling of dread greeted me every morning. To get through the day, I sent upbeat emails to people announcing my medical leave or met up with girlfriends to drink wine and trade holiday stories. I shopped for new bedding, did my taxes, and organized the clothes in my closet by colour. But as much as I tried to escape, the murmurings of fear took up more and more space in my mind. I couldn’t concentrate on anything. At least that is my excuse…

It’s January 5, 2010 and Sophie and I have just turned onto Ash Street en route to the Cancer Agency. She asks how I feel. I tell her I’m fine. This is just an informational session. I won’t have my first treatment for a couple of days. I tell her that I am living in the moment (yeah right).

We park and as I yank my purse over my shoulder, I hear the pill bottles slam up against each other. When we squeeze into the crowded elevator, I try to keep my bag from swaying (I don’t need a constant auditory reminder about why we are here). On the second floor, I flip through a dog eared magazine from 2007 until I hear my name and we are ushered into a tiny office that smells like re-heated meatloaf. I breathe through my mouth as I open my notebook, pick up my pen, and act interested in my drug lesson.

The nurse asks if I brought my stash and in reply, I line up full containers with words like Apo Prochlorazine, Dexamathasone and Ondansetron on her desk. She hands me stapled sheets with detailed information on six different kinds of drugs (the ones in front of me and the other ones that will slide up my veins in a couple of days). Side effects ranging from diarrhea to mouth sores try to get my attention, but all I see is one word under the heading of the drug Docetacel: Alopecia. I hate that I now know this means baldness. I put down my pen and my vision blurs.

I float through the rest of the appointment and don’t come out of my panic coma until half an hour later when I see the receipt at a nearby pharmacy for my immune boosting drugs. $2149.00 to get me through the first half of chemo. Are you kidding me? The pharmacist shrugs and slides a paper bag full of syringes, alcohol swabs, and little vials (that I must hurry home and refrigerate) across the counter to me. I silently thank the Manulife Insurance Angels for covering this bill. But my gratitude slips as I visualize injecting the contents of these vials into my stomach.

I stumble to the street and watch for Sophie’s black Volvo SUV. She said she would circle the block while I ran into the pharmacy.

A vehicle pulls up; I get in, close the door and keep my eyes down so that Sophie won’t see the tears. The Toyota logo on the grey mat catches my eye. In slow motion, I shift my gaze to the left. A woman wearing a full face visor waves her hands and yells at me. Where did Sophie get the visor and why is she wearing it on a cloudy day? I know something is not right but it takes forever for my brain to catch up. The woman beside me is not speaking English and looks nothing like Sophie. My face explodes with heat. I am in the wrong SUV. I stammer my apologies and try to slip out unnoticed, but ten people waiting for the bus stare me down.

My audience watches in interest as another SUV pulls up and I triple check Sophie’s face before I get in. I tell her to hurry so I can get away from the stares. She asks me what happened and before I reply, I am laughing, a belly-jiggling, mind-freeing laugh. I am laughing so hard that I can barely tell her about how I accidentally car jacked a woman with a box of syringes as my weapon. She probably thinks that cancer has finally made me crazy, but I don’t care. If only for a moment, I have escaped the dread and want to stay in this beautiful moment of laughter forever.