Rodney Curtis

Down in Detroit at my new home away from home, the Karmanos Cancer Center, people have wonderful words for their services. The person who walks me or pushes me from one appointment to the next is called my navigator. The woman who plays the role of nurse, contact person and barrier buster is my coordinator. But my favorite word is rebirth. My coordinator Stacey used that word yesterday to describe the simply miraculous process that begins on Friday, October 8th.

By getting my brother’s stem cells I will be like a new-born, she told me. It brought tears to my eyes when she reiterated that they’re not playing around. This is all about a cure, not just remission. She made her case even stronger when she reminded me I’d need my newborn baby shots all over again by the time I’m one.

Honestly.

My diphtheria, tetanus, measles and all the other shots I got back in the Stone Age are no longer valid, (Yes, I’ll get them again and no I’m not worried about suddenly turning into a stump or whatever the anti-inoculation crowd fears these days.).

The epic coincidence that I was originally born right there, in the same medical complex 47 years ago, has left my metaphoric jaw dragging on the proverbial pavement.

Back then, as the family fable goes, Mom and Dad swung in for a milkshake on the way to the hospital. I was their third kid and I think maybe pop was being a bit cavalier. I blame my insane appetite for coffee milkshakes on this prenatal pitstop.

To be honest I kind of like the thought of being a newborn. It allows me to reconfigure my life based on a very real biologic restructuring. If I have to attend elementary school again, I know I’ll breeze right through. In college maybe I’ll study to become a Wall Street banker instead of an unemployed journalist. I can’t wait for my lucrative bonus package just for being potty trained.

Babies don’t have to face the worries like I encountered recently while talking with the diabolic Humana or Aetna insurance cartels. They simply won’t insure me or my family and told me so curtly over the phone. (If you know any Tea Bag members, ask them if they really think health care is fine the way it stands.)

But most importantly, this process helps me put old patterns to bed and gives me the chance to rally around the rebirth and adopt new processes. This, of course, will probably turn out to be total bullshit. But at least now, on this side of the procedure, I can pretend I’ll change dramatically.

I’d like to change the way I demonize previous bosses who even slightly — in my estimation — done me wrong. Ibid for previous girlfriends. I’d love to stop seeing every other driver on the road as trying to screw me over for my lane. I hope that as a baby, just learning about computers again, I won’t have the pathologic fear about emptying my trash because I could’ve inadvertently put something important in there. Maybe I’ll finally choose Canon over Nikon.

And if I’m lucky I can bring my daily fear level down from Red to maybe Blue. My fears aren’t the overt Taliban-raping-my-dogs kind of fears. I tend to fear the inane stuff, like uttering the wrong thing in a social situation or making a boss mad for something silly I said, (Note: see beginning of previous paragraph).

But for the real authority on what I should do differently I asked, pivoting my ripped up desk chair, “Taylor pretend I’m being reborn. What should I do differently this time around?”

“Take risks Daddy,” my daughter said. Oh cool, I’m going to become an adventurer, maybe jump out of airplanes or get over my scubaphobia and search for sunken ships. I tried for more clarification but she was back to texting something as she walked out the door to driver’s training.   

There’s more in that statement, I know. And when I’m a little baby goo-gooing around the place we’ll get to the soul of it, I’m sure.

I hope when I’m a baby again I just eat, poop and love. To live in oneness with the universe would be fabulous. I know other stuff will crowd on in and I stand absolutely no chance of remaining so enlightened though. Heck even the Dalai Lama has a Twitter account.

Hopefully I’ll learn the most important lesson and not take myself as seriously as I do. But I realize that even planning for a near future where I don’t take myself too seriously is already, in itself, taking myself too seriously.

And just like that, the mind games also experience their own rebirth.