Field Notes from Fifty-Five Fruit Street. #1.

Feeling Perfectly Healthy and Hearing: “You Have Leukemia”

On a clear day in August, with lofty clouds breezing across the afternoon sky, I run a mile, lift weights, pick up my farm share, and speak with a few patients who had summertime colds. I sprawl out on my sunporch in the late afternoon and take a luxurious nap.

I awake from a deep sleep to my phone and the kind voice of a hematologist I have recently met. I’ve spent years feeling hale and hearty, though my blood counts are running low, it’s probably due to an anti-cancer medication I take. I expect her to confirm that assumption, but instead she has the unfathomable job of telling me I have an acute form of leukemia, confirmed by a bone marrow biopsy from the previous week.

Shock is a good word to describe my state, a kind of cognitive dissonance considering how well I feel. This is early disease, based on routine labs taken due to my health history. But the treatment is no less intense. I spend the next few days packing for an elongated stay at Fifty-Five Fruit Street, also known as Massachusetts General Hospital. Trying to decide which socks to bring and should I pack an extra jar of moisturizer while simultaneously considering my mortality, the role of suffering in our lives, concern for my family and my friends who…