"Don't kiss any doorknobs"

Is this what it's like to be pregnant? Feeling responsible for two lives?
How do I balance the responsibility of staying healthy and intact for the benefit of my brother versus carrying on with my own life?
Something I cannot see, feel or even touch, something inside of me, could cure him of cancer.

How do I deal with that?

Below are some of my thoughts on that theme.

My sister had a great idea.
Or so she thought. After a cold and never ending winter-spring, Seattle's temperature was predicted to climb into the 80's. We were all to go visit my brother, Tom, downtown at his home-away-from-home, the Pete Gross House for out-of-town patients of the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. His wife, Mary, was returning home for a few days to Leavenworth and by orders of his doctor, Tom needed to have a caregiver around like all the stem cell transplant cancer patients do. We were going to split up the three days between my sister, Barb, and I. (We live in Shoreline, about a 20-minute drive to Tom's place in no traffic or 90 minutes in Seattle's notorious 1-5 slowups.)
"Why don't we bike down to Tom's place?" Barb poses this question the day before our visit. Though it seems a daunting trek to me from this northern suburb to downtown Seattle, Barb and her husband, Ken, bicycle everywhere, including the 6-mile round trip to work every day.
I, on the other hand, used to be a bicycle helmet head but I gave it up after a few years of feeling like a pin ball in Atlanta's car-crazed culture. Plus, I sadly gave away my favorite turquoise and yellow mountain bike to a good friend (hoping he'd fix it up and wheel it out here) before leaving for the Great Northwest last year.
So I grabbed my other brother-in-law's bike, this one neglected and sullen and tucked under a mossy black tarp in the backyard. His neighbor offered to fill up the tires, grease the chain and check it out.
The next morning, I happily whizzed back and forth on neighborhood streets with little traffic. It felt great! I'd forgotten that wonderful free-riding feeling atop a bicycle seat, legs pumping and lungs soon huffing and puffing.
But then I remembered my not-so-great moments in my bicycle past life. My good friend spilling over her handlebars and banging up her vision, back and body into life-altering injuries. Me, in my first year in college when I rode my trusty bike named Jiminy Cricket everywhere, getting nailed by a car that tried to make a left-hand turn through me. And my other brother (not Tom) nicknaming me Frankenstein when he saw my battered and bruised face.
No, biking 15 or so miles to visit Tom might not be such a great idea, after all, even if most of it's on bike trails I told my sis.
"You know, I do have to keep myself safe and healthy for Tom's transplant," I reminded her and her husband. "So I'm not inclined to go play in traffic."
"Oh yeah, that's probably a good idea," they responded.
Three weeks ago, I also wrestled with my responsibility toward my brother's life versus carrying on with my own life. My best friend in Atlanta was getting married May 4.
How could I not go?
Besides it being one-of-those late-in-life weddings that seem both realistic and implausible at the same time, friends from all over the country -- and Japan -- would be there.
But should I get on a plane? There's all those nasty germs floating around in the stale airplane air. And, you know, planes crash. Every once in awhile.
Of course, we all know that getting into a car carries more risk than boarding a plane. But somehow I don't dwell on that fact every time I drive on the highway to get to the cancer center.

So two days before my Atlanta trip, in a last-minute phone call before heading down to the cancer center for some more blood work, I ask if the social worker can see me.
"At some point, donors take a step back and realize what a grand gesture this is," Eric Hanson tells me. "It can seem overwhelming."
Being able to give a life-force, literally, lifeblood, to save a family member's life brings out the proverbial burden-and-blessing conflict.
It is also a time, Hanson says, that brings together siblings who have never been particularly close or it can further bond tight families. The transplant process also puts a magnifying glass on family dynamics that were already stressful and problematic.
"It's tempting to try and work through a lot of old stuff but this really isn't the time. The focus should just be on Tom and getting Tom healthy."
Hanson's advice, in the end: Go about your normal routine, Go to Atlanta, drink plenty of water, use lots of hand sanitizer, and don't take any risks above-and-beyond daily living.
Oh yes.
One more thing.
"Don't kiss any doorknobs, if you get my drift."
Turns out there was an attractive doorknob in Atlanta.
But I didn't open the door.