After my second round of chemotherapy, my blood results stayed stubbornly bad for much longer than expected, and the next treatment kept getting postponed. Fortunately, my bone marrow eventually woke up and decided to join the fight, so we were able to continue according to plan.

I was sitting in the blood testing room at 6:45 a.m. again, usually one of the first patients there. The nurses were often still turning the lights on. After about an hour and a half of waiting, my number flashed on the screen and I headed for Clinic 7.

I sat down.

The doctor put on that disappointed expression again.

“I’m not going to make you happy today either. Everything else has improved, but your bone marrow doesn’t seem interested in cooperating. It’s probably just very sensitive. It’s not looking good. We’ll have to postpone it again. Today is Thursday. You’ll get two injections to stimulate growth, we’ll give it the weekend, and on Monday we really need to proceed. If the results are still poor, we’ll lower the dose and figure something out.”

“Is there anything I can do?” I asked.

He looked resigned.

“Not really. Just don’t get sick. This one is about time.”

This was the third set of bad blood results in a row.

How was my body not handling this?

Ever since I started martial arts, there have rarely been days when something didn’t hurt. At university in China, I trained six days a week, six to eight hours a day. In Brazilian jiu-jitsu, I was one of those idiots who happily rolled for the entire hour without taking a break and then stayed afterwards for extra rounds with friends just for fun. I always chose bigger training partners because it made the rounds more interesting.

I got tired.

I got bruised.

I got battered.

But I was never so exhausted that I couldn’t continue. And now my bone marrow was asleep and refusing to do its job? The worst part was that I couldn’t do anything about it. For the first time in my life, I couldn’t push the fear aside. Whenever difficult things happened in life, relationships, or sport, I’d switch onto autopilot. I filled my mind with tasks, plans, work, schedules, and objectives. Keep moving. Keep solving problems. Stay in control. Very little catches me by surprise. And when it does, I usually file it away as a lesson and make sure it won’t happen again. That has always been comforting. This time, however, I already had all the information. I’d researched the nutrition. The supplements. The side effects. I had my training schedule ready, my work schedule ready, places I wanted to visit, projects I wanted to finish.

There wasn’t much left to plan.

There wasn’t much left to control.

I had to keep doing what I was already doing and simply hope.

And the feeling that it might all go wrong anyway, no matter how well I did everything, bothered me more than I wanted to admit. Fortunately, I received two injections to stimulate bone marrow growth—one at the hospital and one the next day at home. At least it felt like something was happening. Afterwards I felt a bit like I had the flu. Extreme fatigue. Aching knees. Aching legs. Sleepiness. Chills. A slightly sore throat. Fortunately, it all faded within a few hours.

I prescribed myself strict rest.

That meant no long walks and no exercise.

In reality, that translated into taking my son skating at the local pond on Saturday and going for a short walk followed by dinner with friends and our children on Sunday. I’m still working on the concept of rest. On Monday, I was back at the hospital at 6:45 a.m. I didn’t feel any different than before. Still tired. Still sleepy. The night before chemotherapy I never sleep well anyway, so I had no idea what the results would show. When I walked into the office, though, the doctor wasn’t wearing his usual gloomy expression. That seemed promising.

“Well, finally. Everything looks good today.”

I practically lit up.

“So those injections really helped!”

He shrugged.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Honestly, I think it was mostly time. Your body simply needed longer than before. But if the results are bad again next time, we’ll use the injections earlier and see what happens.”

I never thought I’d be excited about chemotherapy.

Yet there I was.

Everything was back on track.

At least as much as anything can be while you’re being treated for cancer. Originally, both the doctor and I wanted to give the full treatment in a single day. After all the delays, however, he recommended splitting it over two days again. Fortunately, I live very close to the hospital.

Two tram stops.

Almost as if somebody upstairs knew what was coming when my parents chose this apartment years ago. 🙂 Last February, I was packing suitcases and preparing our move to Thailand, which was supposed to be our home for at least the next several years.

This February looks rather different.

After my final chemotherapy session, I’ll have scans, tests, and a meeting with all my doctors to discuss what comes next. Years of training taught me not to argue with experts. Listen carefully, collect the information, and follow instructions. I’ve been trying to change that mindset a little in recent years.

That said, my experience at the university hospital in Lochotín has been excellent. Every doctor, every nurse, every member of staff has been kind to me. Many of them have gone above and beyond what they had to do.

When my blood results came back bad yet again, one of the nurses even drew a little green four-leaf clover on my appointment card for luck.

At my next visit, I thanked her.

Because it worked. 🙂

Of course, I’ve still researched everything myself. Every sentence in every medical report. Every unfamiliar medical term. Every medication. I even got a second opinion from another specialist. His conclusion was simple: he wouldn’t do anything differently.

I have excellent doctors.

And everything is going exactly as it should.

So these days, my trust isn’t blind.

It’s fully informed.