fouroneeighty

i write the date "4/1/80" at least once a week. it is on every correspondence at the hospital. it is on my wristbands when i receive chemo or have a procedure. i repeat it to every person who takes my blood for testing, injects me with an iv, changes the chemo bag hung on the pole, or gives me a shot of something. i write it on every form for every test, every single time i am there. it identifies me as myself, confirms i am the one who should be tasting the bitter metallic tang of the chemo; the one who should be lying on the table for the scan; the one who provided the correct answers to the info report i've filled out a hundred times before.

so today, you can probably understand it was a little difficult to train my hand to write "4/1/08". i can barely type it here.

the thing you need to know about me, in case you don't know already, is that i was greeted with long odds on that april fools day in 1980 in minneapolis. just years prior i might not have made it through the first weeks of my life. i might not have gotten to suck in any fresh air at all. when you're born nine weeks early it is a big deal. you're tiny - i weighed less than a bag of flour on the day i was born and shrunk to about three pounds - tiny.

mom didn't get to see me the day i was born. there i was, and there i went, over to children's hospital while she recovered from her surgery. mom and dad didn't get to hold me for a week. i lived in an incubator in a world of beeps - an alarm would sound when i stopped breathing - and nurses - the ones who would name me "lizzy" because of my ornery spirit. the day they were supposed to hold me for the first time, minnesota dished out a snowstorm. they sat on the couch at home and cried. can you imagine? this tiny little being is your own flesh and blood and you can't even hold her?

finally, they held me, gently at first, and my little peanut body grew and grew and i slowly caught up with where i was supposed to be. i moved to a hospital closer to home and soon was able to join them there, after a month with the doctors and nurses and grandparents, who visited often. home.

home to a house on a hill overlooking a lake with a dog and a deck and a boat.

mom and i hung out every day and dad taught me about rock music. aunts and uncles came to waterski and party. snow piled up and melted again, and eventually a little brother showed up, and we got to be best friends, playing on a swingset and in a sandbox and in the snowdrifts and on the dock.

long odds realized in a life that makes me feel proud to be part of the family that i love and rich in friends i've made and love i've found along the way.

is it any wonder i ended up so perfect?