A Drug Addict Saved My Life

Relationships are complicated. Everyone knows that they aren’t black and white. The best ones are in full technicolor. My girl calls me “O”. She determined years ago that I give Oprah Winfrey level advice. The highest compliment for an advice giver there is. If I’m Oprah that makes her Gayle. Gayle and I have been friends since our freshman year in highschool. I didn’t know we were besties until she introduced me as such to someone a long time ago. I agreed with her and we’ve been rocking ever since.

We haven’t always gotten along. There was some weird competitiveness to our friendship at one point. She didn’t particularly care for any friends I had outside of her and eventually, I didn’t really have any other than her. Except for male friends. She seemed to have a hard time being happy for the success of others if she didn’t feel hers matched theirs. Because of this, we became distant for a time.

Sometimes we have to be reminded that another person’s blessings don't detract from our own. There’s enough goodness out there for the lot of us. Gayle is brilliant, beautiful and determined and her only true competitor is herself.

I’m not sure exactly how we reconnected but we did, slowly. We communicated occasionally, not like the every day multiple times a day talks we had in the past. We were friends from afar, but the love we shared was strong enough to make Gayle the person responsible for me being here to tell you my story today.

For years, we ate, drank, danced, went to spoken word events and ran the streets together. Some of my life's best memories were created with my bestie. We were so close, we were mistaken for lesbian lovers.

Apparently, that same vibe carried over while I was unconscious. Even while I was in a coma, the hospital staff assumed we were a couple. They kept referring to Gayle as my "partner" until she finally caught on and made us heterosexual again.

When I needed her most. When my life depended on her, she was there. Before I was put under, I asked her to do all she could to make sure I lived to take care of my five children. My best friend took that commitment to heart. And when the doctors were ready to let me go, she held on harder.

Gayle made daily visits to check on me and make sure that the staff knew I was loved and would be missed. Body checks were performed for skin break down resulting in bed sores or rashes. My bleeding was monitored because I bled from my nose, mouth and incision sites.

My mother died when she was 46. My father lives out of state, nearly 5 hours away. I am divorced. I didn’t have a boyfriend. My siblings are scattered. Gayle was my voice.

They called her and told her she had to agree to pull me off the machines because my condition was necrotizing, which means the cells in my organs were dying. They wanted to hold a meeting to announce it to the family. So Gayle asked for another opinion because in her words, “that’s just what you do when they say you have to kill someone because they're already dead.”

The doctors agreed to the second opinion, and Gayle announced to my family (minus my children) and friends that it was the end. The doctors wanted to gather to explain, so there was a mandatory meeting. Wednesday came and my loved ones were left in the meeting room for about a half hour while the doctors stood outside in the hall talking.

My people were expecting to hear that it was over and nothing further could be done but instead a Rheumatologist came in and said my condition was not necrotizing after all. Instead of pulling the plug, she wanted to meet with Gayle to discuss giving me a cancer drug that might further compromise my immune system, and put me closer to death, but just enough to save my life or spare me a little longer.

I used to have nearly waist length locs. Strong, lovely hair I’d grown and only trimmed for 15 years. Just prior to my 40th birthday, I cut it. I always told people it was because I wanted something new for my 40th, but that’s only because it was hard to explain that I had this nagging feeling that my hair was going to fall out and that I wanted to be in control of the situation. What’s even stranger is that I knew it would fall out from chemo but I never thought I’d have cancer. Weird, I know.

Gayle agreed to the treatment even though it was chemo and I had the potential to have all the side effects of someone with cancer. It didn’t work. So, she agreed to an even stronger dose of chemo. They wanted to reset my immune system. Kill it and rebuild it from scratch.

If I survived, I’d be brand new.