Another ped day

How odd that the last time I posted was while it was snowing, and a ped day. Today's another ped day, and it's snowing again! The school staff coincidentally has good timing with their ped days, lol. Another reason it's good timing...I'm sick! Headache and an upset stomach, and I'm pretty tired. Just a bug, I'm sure, as my husband seems to have come down with one as well, and many other people I've come into contact with this past week are also sick, but still...of course I'm anxious. I have my next blood test in exactly one week, so I'm eager for it to hurry up and come so I can hurry up and get it over with. Hopefully all will be well so I can enjoy my last week of work and then relax for the holidays.

Speaking of snow, I see in my last post that I mentioned how snow freaked me out. Luckily, I've since gotten over that. I think it was just the initial reaction to seeing snow again for the first time since I had gotten sick. I'm OK with snow now. :)

On a less OK note, my grandmother passed away last week. It was very sudden, so that's good, at least...I was worried, since she was getting old, that her health would start to deteriorate to the point that she'd end up in the hospital for a long time where she'd deteriorate even more. After spending so much time in the hospital this year, I just didn't want that to happen to her. I mean, I'd never want that to happen to her (or to anyone else for that matter) anyway, but now that I know what it's like, that feeling has only increased one trillionfold. It's funny how many people say they hate hospitals when they've never even hospitalized long-term. You think YOU hate hospitals? Haha. Go through what I did. It's so much worse than you can ever imagine. It's awful. However horrible you think it may be, imagine that, but 100 times worse. So, I'm glad she just died suddenly and didn't go through that shit.

S-NO.

It's snowing and I'm freaking out pretty badly as I got diagnosed and admitted to the hospital just after a snowstorm. It snowed plenty while I was in there and I didn't get to leave til winter was over. So last time I saw snow was, well...then. I didn't think I'd have this reaction to seeing snow again but BAM. There it is. It's awful and spooky and I feel like ripping my hair out and breaking things. I just feel miserable. It's a quarter to midnight and it's late but luckily I have tomorrow off as it's a meeting day for the teachers (just meetings, no classes), which subs don't get paid for, so, I get to stay home, sleep in, and rest up; all which I desperately need. My mind is certainly not resting at the moment though. Thankfully the zopiclone is kicking in...

A slow absorption

It feels like the more time that passes since the whole leukemia diagnosis & hospitalization, the worse it makes me feel when I see/hear something that makes me think about it. I'm unsure as to why this is. The only conclusion I can come up with is that enough time has passed so that it's starting to finally sink in that yes, all that horrendous crazy shit really did indeed happen to me, and the danger is still quite real. I don't know how to explain it. It's an odd situation, to feel like I'm taking steps back in terms of handling my fear, but I know (or hoping) that's not the case...I think it just might be a matter of things sinking in. I wasn't exactly prepared for this...I've been feeling better lately as I've figured out how to get a grip on my fear between blood tests and in terms of being scared of relapse. I've gone through such improvement there, so it's a little disheartening to see that now my memories are bringing more fear, and as such I'm dealing with a new problem. I wonder how many more random stages and forms of "acceptance" or ways of dealing with this await me. Unnnnghh. What happens if/when I finally totally realize and accept all the shit happened to me this year? When it all finally sinks in? What is that even going to feel like?

Comfort?

I enjoy changing around the look of this blog. I don't know why, it's fun. Right now it's notebook paper to reflect my new job. :) I don't know if I like this look that much though.  I'll probably end up changing it soon. Blogspot gives you soooo many options, and you can edit them on top of it, so...yeah. Lots of choices, haha.

It's disgustingly late. I'm waiting for my zopiclone to kick in so I can go to sleep and feel as rested as is still possible (which won't be enough) for work tomorrow and Friday. I'm watching Star Trek Voyager in the meantime. It's one of those shows I find very comforting. A part of this may be due to the fact I've been watching it late at night for over ten years now, so I may kind of associate it with going to bed. For anyone reading this right now, I wonder what TV shows bring YOU comfort? :)

Once again, "Life's Good!"

Life's gotten SO much better since I last wrote here. :) I'm now working full-time, working a contract until Christmas at an elementary school teaching my favourite grades (4, 5, and 6). Being finally employed feels SO GOOD, there are no words to describe how I feel. This (temporary) solution to my financial problems is such a huge weight off my chest, and the fact that I'm out and about and being kept busy means I'm not at home stewing about, worrying about relapsing and obsessing over bruises and coughs and what have you. It feels so good to have routine and purpose to my day, SO GOOD. The contract only goes til Christmas so when the school year resumes in January I'll be out of a job again, but I'm not worried as the other week I sent my CV out to 77 schools for subbing, and I'm getting calls from them already which I have to turn down as I'm already working at THIS school. So I'm sure I'll be able to find plenty of subbing work at that point. Either way, finances-wise, I'm helped out a LOT by the contract I'm working now. It certainly isn't easy--working full-time after being unemployed for 9.5 months is quite the shocker--but I love it. Being so exhausted certainly beats being unemployed and sad, eh? Unemployment is the worst!

I'm home today as I had day surgery yesterday. VERY minor surgery. I had an IUD put in...not the copper type, but the Mirena. Haha! My husband and I keep joking around that Marina got the Mirena! Hopefully this will FINALLY be the solution to the horrid horrid horrid monstrous subhuman fucked-up menstrual insanity I've been dealing with for the past few years. I can't remember if I wrote about that here before or not. I'm pretty sure I have, but just in case I haven't, well...as I keep telling people, I didn't beat cancer just to deal with THIS bullshit. Hellllz no. Everything else doctors have tried with me over the years hasn't worked at all (birth control, pain killers, exercises, etc.), so after all this time, Mirena was the only thing they could think of. I'm also seeing a new gynecologist at the same hospital I was admitted at for my leukemia, which is awesome as that hospital is fantastic and my last gynecologist was pretty useless. Except for the fact he brought me into this world. Yeah, he helped deliver me, how funny is that?

Coping

Ehhhh. What else can I do but drink and get high (nearly) every day. It's how I cope now. What set me off last night was wondering why I was anxious, and then this thought process: "Why am I anxious? Am I anxious about subbing? Of course not! I'm anxious about getting cancer again and dying!" So yeah that kinda brought me down, ya know?! And then I had nightmares all night. Oh, lovely! Now I've been drinking all day and I've had enough weed to kill a small elephant. Life is fantastic.

I ALMOST started working again!

So I haven't written here in awhile! (Again!) Well, a lot has happened since I last wrote. I had two bloodtests! Yes, two. This is why: I had the first one, which was my regular scheduled blood test, and all was well. WOW was it ever nervewracking though; like last time, I was anxious on the weekend before it, more or less fine once I was at the day clinic and waiting in the room, and scared once I actually got called into the examining room and had to wait there. Like, actually shaking. But everything was fine. However, a few days later I got a REALLY bad mouthsore that hurt WAY more than the usual blisters and pains I get in my mouth. It stuck around for a few days (in fact, it's still there), and I called my nurse on the weekend. The weekend was a little insane, as I had finally worked up the guts to call a teacher I had been replacing last year to tell her that I was out of the hospital and that I could replace her again when she needed me. Why did that take 'guts'? I don't know. I was worried it would be an awkward conversation. I don't like talking to people in the working world about cancer when all I want is a job, I guess. Anyway, I got in touch with her, and she wanted to know if I could replace her that upcoming Monday, just for the afternoon. I said yes; what better way to easily step back into the subbing world by starting with just two periods in the afternoon?

So Monday morning comes and I'm getting all my subbing stuff set up, my route to the school figured out, ready to be back in the classroom after 8.5 months of being out of work, when bam, I get a call from my nurse telling me to come in right away. I was so shocked! I figured she'd tell me to do X,Y,Z with my mouthsore and if things didn't get better, THEN I'd have to come in. I actually told her I was going to start work that day, but she said it would be best if I came in immediately. So I had to cancel my first venture back in the working world. I cried after I hung up.
 
Then, I had to call the teacher to tell her I wasn't coming in to replace her even though she was expecting me in a few hours. As she was in class, all I had to do was leave a voice mail, so that was good, at least. I explained why I was backing out and how important it was that I had to get to the hospital and apologized PROFUSELY. I told her I would call her back soon with news but omg I'm not going to do that anytime soon as I just can't face her right now. I know that none of this was absolutely remotely my fault, but I still feel terrible about it. After that call, I called the school itself and spoke to secretary and explained to her the situation. She was NOT pleased. I politely explained that it was an emergency and I had to get to the hospital, but she was hearing none of it. I felt terrible, but what can ya do? You don't fuck around with cancer, no matter how badly you want a job.

I got to the hospital by foot (the weather was nice) and I had to wait quite awhile as they were PACKED. My mom came to meet me there too, and while we were waiting, we wandered into the hallway where a girl about my age with hair of approximately the same hair length as mine (which leads me to wonder if she's about in the same point in her treatments as me), came running out into the hall on her phone crying. She started pressing the elevator button frantically and then started sobbing, turned around and kicked the door to the stairwell open, and fled. Everyone standing in the hall just went silent. It was obvious what had happened to her. Her cancer had come back. I felt so horrible in away I never felt horrible for anyone before.

Luckily for me, the outcome of my day was far better. My blood test came out with excellent results yet again, and my oncologist looked at my mouthsore and determined it wasn't a mouthsore at all. He said it looked like I had BITTEN myself (my nurse thought the same thing!). Apparently I had bitten myself in my sleep (damn hard?!) but for some reason the pain only started in the late afternoon/early evening. How random. Either way, it's apparently nothing to worry about, as my blood tests are great and he said he doesn't even need to swab it; he can tell that's all it is. And my oncologist is NOT one to sugarcoat things, oh ho ho no, I'll tell ya that!

So I went home relieved, but that poor girl didn't.  I feel so bad. I couldn't stop thinking about her. I went out that evening to run errands with my husband downtown, and we had fun, but...what about her? What was she doing? How was she feeling? And her family? And her friends? I felt so sad. I didn't exaclty feel guilty...but...I sort of did too, you know? I'm not sure what the right word I'm looking for is.

As I mentioned earlier in the post, my mouthsore still hurts, but the pain has gone wayyy down. I also got a pretty bad cold a couple of days ago, and the combination of the cold and mouth pain sure would have given me a scare that would terrify me beyond words (and that's an understatement!) if I hadn't gone in and gotten those excellent results on the blood tests. I just had 2 other colds in the past month, and frequent colds is a bad sign, but my bloods seem to be good, sooo...yay? Besides, I've ALWAYS been super susceptible to colds. This is nothing new in my world. :P

Happy Halloween (one day belated!) to anyone reading this, btw. I'm SO happy I got to go out last night, lingering cold or no. I felt like shit all day today because of it (which is weird, as I didn't get wasted or anything), but whatever, it was all worth it either way, as I had a lot of fun and Halloween is my favourite day of the year. :) Today I just rested up and tomorrow evening is the Rocky Horror Picture Show! I love this time of year so much!

It worked!

I got an appointment with the therapist on October 18th. ^_^ Looks like sanity might be on its way. Eventually.

Where else am I gonna write all this?

Not sure if I should update this, all I do it talk about how anxious I am. But the flipside to that is I don't know where else to talk about how anxious I am! lol. Well, except Facebook, that is. ha, my Facebook wall has taken such a beating...how every single person has not put me on Hide yet is beyond me.

Fuck this anxiety so hard. Freaking out about every ache and pain...checking out every inch of my skin and worrying about every bump, lesion, spot, whatever...ahhhhhh! Well, I called my therapist finally--FINALLY--yesterday, and didn't get in touch so I left a message, but still haven't heard back from him a day later, so I'm gonna try calling back tomorrow. My plan is to keep calling like some kind of deranged telemarketer. 

Ah well. Seems like I'm not drunk anymore. (I had a nice fill of whiskey, beer, and cheapo Chinese food today!) Time for another weed pill, I guess. So much marijuana and booze lately...they really take the edge off this nervous breakdown I feel like I'm on the verge of having.

Imagine life without fear

Even with good news re: blood tests, it's tough not to be scared all the time. I'm always scared about everything that happens. I get pains in my mouth a lot, so naturally, that fucks me up. And I found a bruise on my knee the other night, which nearly sent me into some kind of fit of absolute terror. I woke my husband up at 3 AM because I was freaking out that much.

I'm starting to get really fed up of this fear though. Frustration is starting to take over the anxiety. At least, that's how it was today. That might change tomorrow. Who knows.

I gotta figure out a way to live my life without being paralyzed by fear from every ache and pain that I get.

All's good! REAL good! :) :) :)

Just edited my last post as whoaaa there were some errors in it. It's really hard to type as Zopiclone is kicking in, I should really stop doing that! XD

Anyway, ALL IS WELL. The test results show that my blood is good; as I wrote on Facebook, the local vampires are safe to feast on me, for my blood is cancer-free. :) When my oncologist gave me the good news, I was so relieved, excited, and happy! So much so that when he followed up the good news by telling me to get on the examination table, I LEPT onto it, pulling my calf muscle charliehorse-style in the process, which resulted in me SCREAMING out in pain. It was soooo embarrassing. And I don't get embarrassed easily. But that sure did it! Haha. I'm so happy though. And last night was a big theatre launch event at the Centaur (one of the biggest theatres here in Montreal) that I attended with my husband. What a perfect opportunity to celebrate! I got quite tipsy and then went home, bought a bottle of wine, ordered pizza and started season six of Dexter and proceeded to get quite drunk. I ended up sleeping in until 1 pm today...my body sure needed it, as it is NOT used to nights like last night! Ha! With so much to celebrate, last night was muchly needed. It was a lot of fun, and I'm very grateful for it. I'm very grateful for many things right now! <3

A much better C-word (Comiccon!)

Comiccon was amazing! The Battlestar Galactica Q&A, meeting James Callis, dressing up as Yuffie, seeing other cosplayers and taking photos, browing the amazing & seemingly endless amount of geekdom merchanise, and running into so many awesome people I know...*happy sigh*. Here's the picture of my husband and me with James Callis. It looks like this as it's a picture of the picture. ;) They charge $10 for digital copies, so I was all, screwww that, I'm just gonna take pictures of this one (or scan it, if I so choose) and put it online for FREE. It already cost forty frackin' bucks just to take the pic in the first place, and we only met him for seriously like 4 seconds. So yeah, I'm gonna make the most of this picture and post it often and post it freely. :P Still, a GREAT way to spend $40 if you ask me-->and a much much much more memorable use of the money than spending it on some beers & shots, or supper at a restaurant or whatever.

While we were waiting in line to meet Mr. Callis, George Takei walked right by us! It was such an unexpected and exciting moment! Also, we saw Edward James Olmos chilling at his autograph stand, and Jason Momoa came out and waved at some girls standing in front of us who blew him kisses. It was soooo cute! A little later I accidentally wandered back where the guests go, not on purpose, and Jason Momoa walked right by me! Even though I'm not really big on Game of Thrones, I was pretty starstruck by seeing him there. I meam, c'mon. It's frackking KHAL DROGO. He is fiiiiiiiiiiiine. And I actually liked him & Danny. Ah well.

Ah, ahhh. The happy lil' Doctor Who section. Here I am getting cozy with a cut-out of Ten.  ;P

The husband up to no good with the Tardis...;)

Me holding up THE picture of...us! XD

 The only bad thing was that I had chest pains for awhile, so we had sit down for a bit, but then after I ate a sandwitch they went away. I think the fact that I was so overexcited combined with the fact I barely ate nor slept may have had something to do with that. Hopefully that's all it is.

Speaking of all this "hopefully that's all it is" stuff, stupid Lupron. I hope it's just screwing around me and that's all what this bleeding's about. Tomorrow morning I have my first blood test and meeting with my oncologist & nurse in over a month. I was feeling soooo nervous about it earlier but I'm feeling better right now, now that it's late at night for some reason. It could just be the zopiclone having taken its effect, haha. But in all honesty, I started to feel calmer a few hours ago, so this is good. I feel fine physically, so I don't think that I really should have anything to worry about the blood test. The blood from my random period is a concern, though. Anyway, I guess I'll find out tomorrow. At least my appointment is the morning so I don't have to wait around all day.

Speaking of which, I should probably go to sleep...the zopiclone has kicked in pretty intensely now! lol. That, and it's pretty darn late. I just wanna get tomorrow morning over with. :/ I hope you enjoyed my post and its photos of Comiccon. I thought it would be a nice change from all the cancer talk. <3

Little by little

Little by little,  I'm getting better at dealing with the random aches and pains I get in my everyday life. I have been getting more pains than usual this past week but I think they're side effects from the Lupron. I looked them up and it seems spot-on. The reason I was looking up Lupron side effects is because I've had a bit of spotting today, plus some slight cramps...I'm on day 20 of cycle, and I shouldn't be getting any periody-related ANYTHING because of the Lupron. I don't know how common that is though so tomorrow I'll call the nurse who gave me the shot. She was sooo nice. She talked to me for a long time and went over a little Lupron booklet with me and the side effects, etc--which obviously I don't remember as I was looking them up on the internet today, but needless to say that's not her fault. ;)

I'm very excited for this upcoming weekend, as I'm going to Comiccon on Saturday, which is a big sci-fi convention. Well, sci-fi is its main point, but it also covers video games, anime, and some television and movies. I went once two years ago and I had a fantastic time. When I heard back in May that the cast of one of my favourite TV shows of all time (Battlestar Galactica) was going to be there this year, I knew no matter what I absolutely HAD to be there. September felt like such a long ways off, but here it is, and I'm not in the hospital, and I have my ticket! :) I even have a ticket for a photo op with actor James Callis, who played my favourite character in the show. To say I'm excited about this is the understatement of the century!!! This helps make up for all the cool stuff I missed over the summer while I was stuck in the hospital or at home being neutropenic. Also, I'm dressing up. I finished putting together my costume today. Even though it's kinda 'ghetto' I'm sooo pleased with it! I'm going as Yuffie from Final Fantasy VII. I'm so excited I barely know what to do with myself! It needs to be Saturday NOW. :)

Writer's unblock

When I was in the hospital I started working on a story I hadn't worked on in awhile. I'd say I like to write in my spare time, but a more accurate comment would be to say that I USED to like to write in my spare time. I find it very hard to write these days (and by 'these days' I mean since I've been in my 20s), although I did co-write a play that my husband and I put up back in 2009 and I'm very proud of it. :) That said, I don't write many stories these days. In the past year or so I got so fed up and FORCED myself to write, and started getting ideas from places, and started writing down every little idea I got in a little book that I have, no matter how small or bizarre. I don't know why I didn't start doing that earlier, as it's been so super useful and it seems like such an obvious thing to do. But I simply hadn't thought of it earlier for whatever reason. I put it next to my bed to write down those ideas I get as I'm falling alseep. We all get those, right? Why do our brains go nuts during that time? Ah well. Anyway, sometimes I read through that little book and all the little disjointed ideas sound like the ramblings of a mad woman, but who cares, they're there. Sometimes I get inspired when I look at them, and sometimes I get ideas for ways they can be worked into the story I'm currently working on. That's the story I started working on again while I was in the hospital, after not having worked on it for I don't know HOW long. I have so many more ideas for it lately. But I realize the problem isn't so much lack of ideas but lack of inspiration overall...like, I don't have the drive to tell the story. Back in the day, I couldn't wait to write my stories down. I had such an overwhelming desire to tell my stories, I couldn't hold them in. It's like that feeling I get nowadays when something really exciting or amazing happens to me and I can't wait to hop on Facebook and tell everyone...that same kind of urgency and excitement to tell that story. I don't feel that anymore. But I want to feel that drive! I could write my story beginning to end if I really wanted to, but I want to be excited about it. I need to WANT to tell my story. Otherwise, what's the point?

Still in town

No trip to the Gaspé after all. We had to cancel our trip as my mother-in-law ended up in the hospital; hopefully all will be well, but she's going to be there for awhile. So any kind of travel plans are postponed for now. I hope she's OK. Things seem to be stable.

Since we weren't in Percé, my husband and I celebrated our first year anniversary here in town. It was still a lot of fun, and I didn't want the day to end. It was a day of fairly laid-back activities (the casino, dinner and drinks, and then a pub with friends), but for me, it was quite the day out-and-about, considering how little I've done of that in the past year. I really, really needed something like that (and that's an understatement), and I need many, many more days like that! I want to be out and about as much as is reasonably possible! Lack of funds is quite a problem, unfortunately. I'm good--VERY good, if I do say so myself--at finding free things to do, but let's face it, even those things can wear thin after awhile. It's great to have money to have some 'REAL' fun, eh? ;)

In other news, I still get scared from daily pains. Every little pain I get. Omg. I'm starting to slooooowly get used to that though. I've got a long ways to go until I genuinely, actually 'get used' to those feelings though, and from what I've read via other cancer survivors you never really truly 'get used' to it, but I guess I can say that my anxiety regarding that is a smidge lower than it was maybe last week. I'm still having trouble sleeping though.

A drugged-up entry, let's hope it makes some sense :P

Ahhhhh Zopiclone, you crazy card! I just took one, about a half ago, so I'm in trippy mode now. Sigh. I've been trying REALLY hard to ween myself off them. At first I stopped cold turkey, but that didn't work out so well, so I helped myself a lot by having marijuana (in pill form, as I shouldn't be smoking) instead. I actually read that you're not supposed to stop Zopiclone suddenly, so I decided to continue taking it, but only every few nights instead. Overall I think it's working out OK.

Tomorrow evening's going to be VERY exciting, as we are leaving for The Gaspé finally! We'll be celebrating our first anniversary there (I can't believe it's been a year already!) on Sunday. :) We have a bottle of wine from last year (with Mario on it, as it was a video game-themed wedding) and we're bringing it along with us. We're hoping to find a restaurant with a BYOW policy, but worst case scenario, we'll drink it in the hotel. :)
It's supposed to rain all weekend, so I really hope it doesn't...or at least not for too long, anyway. I really, really want to take those boat tours and see Percé Rock and the whales--IDGAF what the weather's like, I just hope they don't cancel tours because of the weather, ya know? I guess there's nothing we can do now except wait and see. Anyway, I am so super excited to get out of town (and to go to a place so beautiful and new to me to boot!), so hopefully all will be well.

I am quite sore at the moment from a Lupron shot I got yesterday. The Lupron shot I got back in March finally ran out and I got my period for the first time last Saturday. I was able to get another shot (after spending several hours in the hospital and seeing a rez, a doctor, and a nurse) and it'll last for a few months again but I can't get any more Lupron after that; they told me it wasn't a long-term solution for stopping my periods. So we're gonna try out an IUD. They're going to call me back for the surgery date (it's MINOR surgery) and then we'll see how that goes. I'm not thrilled at the idea of getting one but I'll do ANYTHING to stop my periods. It might ntot even stop them apparently, as the experience can be different amongst women; some no longer get their period at all, and some just get much lighter ones. Anyway, I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens. Just like with cancer! Life in remission can have its scary moments, sometimes seemingy all the time. It's really hard to get used to. I know I'll get used to it eventually, or at least to an extent. Right now I'm still pretty much scared all the time. This I'm sure plays a big role in why I can't sleep at night, so there comes the Zopiclone. And look at that, we've come full circle!

A clean bill of health?

It's been 2 weeks to the day that I went to the hospital clinic for blood tests and my oncologist and pivot nurse both told me all is well, everything's as good as it could be, the chemo was extremely successful, I'm no longer neutropenic, and I no longer need my piccline. They removed it right then & there--my oncologist told me to hold my breath and count to 3 and it was out--and then canceled all my upcoming blood test appointments. I don't have to meet with them again until September. I came home on such a high...what fantastic news, and that's an understatement! I didn't update here, as I guess I kind of wanted to distance myself from cancer-related things as much as possible, although that proved to be a little bit difficult as every little pain I get anywhere in my body is an attack of sheer terror, leading me to wonder in a fit of panic I cannot describe OMG IS THE CANCER BACK?!?! I really have to make an appointment with my psychiatrist to figure out how to deal with this fear. I keep saying that I'm going to do that, but I never do. In fact, I could do it right now, stop typing for five seconds and pick up the phone and try to reach him, but I'm not going to do that. I think I know why. I think I simply DO NOT WANT TO SPEND ANY TIME WHATSOEVER IN THE HOSPITAL EVER AGAIN UNLESS I ABSOLUTELY NEED TO. Unless the fear and panic become absolutely unmanageable, which I guess they just might, I am going to hold off calling him for now. And how bad would it be to wait until the anxiety is that bad? Terrible, I guess. But that knowledge doesn't override my deep revolt at the thought of stepping foot in the hospital for any reason. I mean, really. That shold be obvious.

Anyway, in the past two weeks I've been enjoying the summer vacation I've finally received as much as I can. They told me to wait a couple of weeks until I started drinking alcohol, which leads us to...today. So I might have a beer tonight (they told me to start slowly, and to start with beer, as it's got the lowest alcohol content). So we'll see. The bad thing is, my Lupron shot has apparently run out--my hormones seem to be going a bit crazy as I've had menstrual cramps for the past 5 days or so. Lovely. I'm SO not used to this. Luckily, I'm seeing a gynocologist at the hospital (so yeah, gotta set foot in there!) next week, so hopefully they'll give me another shot of Lupron and my uterus will be on its merry way again and I can return to my life.

Good stuff

After feeling really really down for a few days, I've been feeling a lot better. I wanted to find at least one person who survived a relapse, and I did, and I also found people who were alive after never even going into remission, so I feel a bit better now. I mean, I don't feel good that they never went into remission, of course (well obviously), but if they could survive that while I DID go into remission, that's kind of motivating. (I'm talking about random people on internet cancer groups, btw.)

There are days where I read about people who have it sooo much worse than me and I feel awful complaining at all. And then there are days where I just look at everyone around me who's fine, and I feel terrible and depressed and wonder why I had to get leukemia. Anyway, I've been feeling a lot better these past few days, so I'm very happy and relieved about that. My husband reserved a hotel in the Gaspé for us and we're going there at the end of August (I shouldn't still be neutropenic by then). I'm so excited, as it's my first trip since all this shit has gone down. I've barely left this corner of my neighbourhood--hell, my apartment, even, never mind going out of town! Plus, this will be my first time all the way out to the Gaspé! I've always wanted to go out there, and everyone tells me it's amazing, so I'm very excited indeed. ^_^

Hopeful things

AML is really aggressive, so, there's a 60-70% chance that I'll relapse, right? But there was a 70% chance of rain tonight, and it didn't rain. So maybe I'll be lucky.

Like a minefield, or something

I couldn't focus on anything today. Life is really boring when you can't concentrate on anything long enough to enjoy it, and life is really depressing when you can't forget about the horrors within it because you're unable to distract yourself from them.

I've come to the conclusion that living life in remission with such an incredibly aggressive cancer must be what living in a war-torn country is like. You wake up every day, and you worry if you're gonna get blown up or shot when you leave your house, 'cause the odds are NOT in your favour.

I dunno, does that comparison even make sense? I think it does. At least it does to me. For now, anyway!

Mighty Morphine Power Ranger

I ended up back in the ER this past weekend with TERRIBLE abdominal pain--like, seriously, I couldn't even walk. They put me on a morphine drip while they ran tests to try to figure out what it was (they were worried it was my gallbladder) and OMG BEING ON MORPHINE ALL DAY WAS TOTALLY THE BEST THING EVER. Not only did the pain go away instantly, so I had that experience of going from excruciating pain to blissful peace, but I was SOOOOO HAPPY. It was such a happy feeling! But it made me SUPER-sleepy too, and to say I was 'out of it' is the understatement of the century. Omg, I was in and out of the most pleasant, goofy sleep ever all day long. They sent me for X-rays and an ultrasound and during the ultrasound I fell asleep and the poor technician had to wake me up...hahaha. I remember babbling to her about SOMETHING but who knows what it was! Also, I remember at one point I woke up in the X-ray/radiation hallway on the stretcher with my bags and thought, screw this, I've had enough of sleeping, I'm gonna read some manga! Yeeeeaah! So I sat up and started fishing through my bag looking for my Zelda manga and then all of the sudden--BOOM! Next thing I know, I was on my back again, staring up at the ceiling. I had LITERALLY fallen back asleep while looking through my bag. I was so surprised and amused. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before, not in my entire life!

In the evening I got more morphine and then benadryl as they gave me some blood transfusions, and I slept and I slept and I slept and I felt just so incredibly happy. The next day though, it was not so fun! The pain had completely gone away, so I didn't need any more morphine, so I was stone-cold sober in a tiny little isolation room in the ER and very uncomfortable--and I had a bad reaction to my last blood transfusion, a fever of 39.9! O_____O Luckily, they were able to give me some tylenol (I say 'luckily' as sometimes I'm not allowed depending on how they're monitoring my fevers and/or white blood cells, etc.) and my fever went down and I got a visit from one of my hemotologists and he said I was able to go home, soooo in the end I didn't have to stay TOO long the 2nd day and I was discharged by the mid-afternoon.

Oh, and the horrible abdominal pain? We never figured out what it was. Our mutual best guess is that it was a pulled muscle/charliehorse, a result from the horrible way I sit at my computer.

Getting used to missing out on summer

I've been so out of breath today. My counts are at zero (it sure took long enough!) so from here on there's nowhere to go but up, but I'm sure I'll be neutropenic for awhile; apparently you're neutropenic for longer and longer each time you get chemo, and that certainly seems to have been the case thus far. I can't believe it took this long to get to zero! It's going to take forever for them to come back up again, certainly. Especially considering how I was neutropenic last time I got chemo. Man...so house arrest continues, as usual, but it hasn't been all THAT bad; I'm getting used to missing out on every social event there is, and to not seeing anybody, and missing the whole fucking summer. Anyway, I've been watching tons of anime, playing lots of video games, and reading lots of novels, so it's not like I haven't been staying entertained. Today I've been feeling just awful though (physically). Really out of breath, like I mentioned, and dizzy, and seeing stars..so far I've gotten three transfusions this week. My doctor changed my appointments so that instead of going to the day clinic at the hospital twice a week for blood tests (and transfusions if I need them), I now go three times a week, so that they can keep a closer eye on my bloods. It's annoying having to go back & forth so much, but it also feels safer, as I'm under closer watch (which is the point). I've been kind of on edge lately, as the day after tomorrow it'll be five months since I got diagnosed. Why this bothers me is because I'm terrified of relapse; AML has a high relapse rate (this is where those dreadful percentages come in to play) and I somehow gotta make it to three years without a relapse to be considered 'in the clear' (and even then....). A friend of mine on Facebook posted a mind-blowing comic from the wonderful XKCD about this very subject when I was worrying about it on Facebook, and it made me feel sooo much better and less alone. Here's the comic:

DONE!

Chemo's done! I was discharged yesterday. :) It went relatively really quite well, I didn't get anywhere NEAR as sick as I did the other times. I am so relieved, and that's an understatement. So, that's it, then. Nothing left to do but rest and recover, and wait for them to find a donor. It's weird. This is it! That's all there is. I gotta keep going in for blood tests, but as the months go on, they will apparently be less frequent. I still have to go to them, because that's how they keep an eye on my blood cells to make sure I don't relapse. I hope I don't relapse. Ohhhhh I hope I don't relapse! I can't live my life being afraid and anxious with every blood test I take, but I haven't figured out how to put that into practice yet. Think good thoughts for me! xoxoxo

Oh yeah, I'm back in hospital again

So I'm microwaving food innocently in the family room which I have to myself, of COURSE people have to come in, and some lady (NOT a patient or hospital staff) comes up to me and says in a SUPER-cheery voice, "hi, how are you?" and I don't answer cuz I don't feel like talking to a random stranger. So she switches to French and asks me the same thing. So I felt bad and mutter "hi" which she took as an invitation to keep talking and ask how I was doing. I'm just warming up my food bitch, that's how I'm doing. I just very quietly said "good." WTF. You wouldn't wander up to a stranger in a mall or on the bus and do that, what makes you think you can do it in the hospital? "Oh, I'll go brighten a cancer patient's day a little!" No, you're not, you're bothering this cancer patient a little. I'm not your good deed for the day, FUCK OFF.

I dunno, I've always hated random strangers talking to me and it's the main reason I've always, always, ALWAYS worn earphones in the public for the past ohhhh 15 years or so. (Some people STILL don't get the hint.)

Nightmares

I can't remember if I mentioned this here or not, but a really fucked-up thing that's happened since I've been diagnosed with leukemia is the way my dreams have changed. The nightmares. Oh crap, the nightmares. I haven't had any in awhile but they've started up again. I've had two this week. One of them involved me (possibly) drowing someone's baby (I say 'possibly' as the baby was unconscious and there was a chance it'd be OK but things certainly didn't look good), and the other was this morning, when I woke up and went back to bed. I had one bad dream where I got into an argument with my husband about me getting a job, which left me really upset, and then I had this horrible nightmare where I was one of the characters from Lost (Juliet, for any Lost fans who may be reading this, lol).

Now, this nightmare REALLY freaked me the fuck out, so I'm going to write it down here. Writing this shit out makes me feel better. Also, some of my fucked-up dreaming is a cancer-related thing, so I figure it makes sense to write about my dreams here, at least once in awhile. Plus, some people have asked me what kind of dreams I've had related to my cancer, so here's one! So, if you're one of those people who doesn't like to read about dreams, especially in great detail, you're going to want to skip this entry.

So, we had this really unreliable plan to escape the Island, which was to jump off a cliff while wearing lifejackets into the water. But the cliff was so high that when we hit the water, we'd end up unconscious, so Jack (who's a doctor, for those not familiar with the show) would resuscitate us (if he could) and we'd be able to escape that way by attaching balloons on us or something like that. The cliff was really high and the fall was really harsh so our saftey wasn't guaranteed; there was no way of knowing for sure if he'd be able to wake us up again once we hit the water. But it was our only chance of escaping the Island, so we did it, even though we knew our chances weren't that great. So we hit the water and it was harrrsh, and sometimes I was watching it like a show and sometimes I saw it from Juliet's point of view 'cause that's just how dreams are. Anyway, I was the last one to wake up and I was coughing up blood from the impact of hitting the water, and I started slipping in and out of consciousness which felt like blacking out, and because of the life jackets and broken bones from hitting the water from so high up, most of us were floating on the water looking upwards. I was looking up at the clouds and blinked, and all of the sudden it was night and I was looking up at stars, and the most horrible sense of terror came over me as I realized the reason it seemed to have passed from day into night in a split second was because I had passed out for a really long time. And I felt worse, and I was freezing, and I realized I was dying and I was so scared, and I was just floating in the fucking sea, staring up in the sky, and I was dying, and everyone was around me and they had no idea what I was feeling and they were trying to save me, and it was so strange to see them trying to help me when I knew there was nothing they could do because I was about to die. I distinctly remember being happy that was surrounded by my friends and that I didn't have to die alone in the water, but I was so terrified, and I suddenly started gasping, and I realized, well, this is it, I've got to tell them, they can stop trying to save me. I tried to get Kate's attention, I tried to talk, and I could only whisper, so I started talking, and in real life, I woke up to the sound of my voice, saying "This is the end." I was SO RELIEVED to be awake in my bed, but really fucking freaked out from the dream. And freaked out due to me waking up to the sound of my own voice saying "this is the end", referring to myself thinking I was about to die. I just lay in bed for awhile before getting up because that was seriously some fucked-up heavy shit right there.

Anyway, it's getting onto 1:30 AM and I'm still thinking about that nightmare, it's still super vivid in my head. And I gotta say, it helps to have written it out. I had a lot of dreams this morning, but that was the big one. FREAKY SHIT, MAN.

STILL neutropenic

What the subject line says.

Yup, still neutropenic. Quite. How is this possible?! I mean, I know how it's possible, but...ughhh. I had to cancel ALL my plans this weekend--my belated birthday party plans, which was a night at Cine-Express on Saturday, and a potluck on the mountain on Sunday. This is, IIRC, the third time I've canceled my own birthday celebrations I keep trying to hold this year. And worst of all, I was supposed to go to Ottawa on Monday for Canada Day. Sooo not gonna happen now. I'm so upset, and that's an understatement.

I've decided to hold off on organizing any more events until September-ish. I'm supposed to have two more rounds of chemo--one in July and one in August. So if all goes well, by September I should have nothing fucking up my daily and/or social life too badly. Maybe I can actually have some fun then.

For now, back to house arrest. I am going to go crazy soon.

Transplants and chemo and all that stuff

I saw my doctor today, and he was more optimistic than usual. Meaning he didn't just sit there and spit out percentages and possibilities, so that was nice. And he seemed more upbeat than he usually does. Yay. Anyway, I found out a bunch of stuff:

-I'm still neutropenic. STILL. Even though I finished my last bout of chemo three weeks ago. As it turns out, though, this is normal; each time I get chemo, the longer the neutropenic period is, as my body gets "more & more beat-up". So, house arrest continues (sigh), BUT my counts are coming back up. I'm not yet quite sure what this means for all the partying I had planned for this weekend. GET ME OUT OF THIS APARTMENT GODSDAMMIT. -__- Cabin fever is eating me from the inside!

-Now, this is pretty interesting. A potential donor for me was found!.... but only matched me at 8/10. (The lowest a match should be is 9/10.) According to my doctor, given that a transplant won't increase my chances of survival by THAT much, added to the risk of a 8/10 match plus the fact that transplants are risky in general, he decided that it's a no-go and opted for more chemo instead; one round the second week of July, and one more in August, then they stop.
 
-He said they would continue to search for a donor, but if 3-4 years go by and I don't relapse, they would stop looking, as generally no relapse in 3-4 years means a relapse isn't likely to happen again!

-Overall, my doc says he's pleased with the way things are going and that I react to chemo well. When I pointed my horror to nearly ending up in the ICU last time and how going into septic shock was the most horrible experience of my life, he said, "well, these are risks of chemotherapy." NOT rudely, NOT condescendingly, not dissmissive...just matter-of-factly. I'm still scared to death of chemo, but he made me feel better somehow. Sorta. It just...it feels good to know that, as scary and potentially deadly as it was, it was a on par with how chemo can be. It'd be a lot worse if the doctors freaked out and said "This NEVER happens!" and/or had to stop the chemo because of it, or something.

Like I said earlier, it was nice to see my doctor being optimistic. The best part is, he talked about me being alive in 3-4 years as some kind of real possibility instead of some kind of unattainable goal. It's a nice change.

And so the festivities begin...for everyone else.

Festival season has started here in Montreal, and festival season is one of the reasons I chose to move downtown--so I could be in walking distance to all the festivals. This year living so close to them is proving to be a curse rather than a blessing as I'm stuck at home, neutropenic, while it feels like everyone in the world is at the Fringe Fest and/or the St-Laurent street fair. I hate it. I should be grateful to be alive after that fucking septic shock stint in the hospital, but I'm just feeling bitter and crabby that I can't be outside and join everyone in the festivities.

Of course, the weather has to be perfect, too. Or so I hear it is. I refuse to go outside; like last month, I could always go hang out on the balcony, but then I just see everyone having fun, and I can hear festivities from my apartment, so it's like a slap in the face. In fact, even though it's not hot out, I have the A/C going full blast, so the white noise blocks out the sound of everyone outside having fun. I know I sound all emo 'n shit but I really feel lonely and miserable. I'm worried about posting too much about it to Facebook as I don't wanna be a downer to my friends who I genuinely hope are having a good time, but I'm feeling really down so I gotta vent somewhere, and since it's cancer-related I guess my cancer blog is a good place as any. :P

Also, I'm really sick and tired of washing my hands. I feel like my skin is going to rip off! Argh!

I can't wait until it's late enough to take sleeping pills, just so I can get high. How sad is that?

Tales from a cyborg

Whew. Got home yesterday, yay! Today Mike took me for a drive in the SUV he rented for work, so that was fun, as it's a safe-ish way for me to get out of the apartment for a bit. I had to walk one block to get where he parked it, and even though this was over two hours ago, I'm STILL out of breath. Oh, chemo. Unnnghhh. I have so much to do in terms for appealing my rejection for EI illness benefits but I'm too wiped to go look for my papers. This morning I made myself eggs and was knocked out for a good 45 minutes afterwards. I'm getting used to the drill though. I know in a couple of weeks I'll feel fine, bla bla bla.

I have to keep my piccline in as my veins have gotten too weak to poke anymore, so that's really annoying. It's a yucky feeling, as the tubes that stick out on the outside dangle and get in the way of things and are kind of heavy and I feel the tubes (not the piccline itself) at the insertion site and arrrghhh. And showering with it is such a bitch, I can't even explain it. Yesterday Mike and I wrapped it up to prepare me for a shower and it was such a pain in the ass that we mutually decided I don't need to shower daily anymore. :P

I absolutely will not go into public with this fucking thing, so we bought gauze to wrap it up in, and omg it's SO MUCH MORE COMFORTABLE like this! No dangling, no buggy, tugging feeling...the thing is, I'm not supposed to leave it like this as it's supposed to breathe, and I'm supposed to uncover it while I'm at home, but I'll leave it like this for now (what if I were out for a really long time?) as it's just so much more snug and comfortable, it's ridiculous. I'm not sweating, so I feel it's OK...

Gross

My platelets are super low, which means a paper cut would probably be enough to cause me to bleed out, so I'm currently being prepped for a blood platelet transfusion. Which means benadryl via IV, which means I'm high as fuck. Because of the low platelet level, my pic line site is oozing blood. It's not dangerous, but holy shit is it ever gross. It's so gross that it's fascinating. I can't stop looking at it.

Another super gross thing is that I'm getting so fucking bored and restless in the hospital that I've been certain specific reading 4-chan boards. I don't participate or anything (I would NEVER), just read. And I'm reading horrible, horrible things and I'm enjoying it way too much. I feel kind of guilty to be so entertained by something at someone's expense (I'm watching some horrible bullying transpire), but I'm not partipating in it, I'm simply watching from the sidelines, so it's not like I'm causing any harm anyway. *shrug*

Btw, if you're reading this and don't know what 4-chan is it, trust me: IT'S FOR THE BEST. You're a better person for being uncorrupted. 

Anyway. Apparently they're switching my antibiotics from IV to pill form today, and if I handle it OK, I should be able to go home tomorrow. FINALLY! :)

Good-doers! (Or is it do-gooders?)

Okay, so like, my friends are awesome and stuff and are donating and doing this leukemia walk thing, check it out:

www.lightthenight.ca

Also, my friend is participating in a blood drive in memory of an individual who was a member of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada. It's going to be at St-Mary's Hospital (where I was born, incidentally!) here in Montreal on Monday, June 17th from 10 AM until 4 PM. I won't be able to attend as I'll still be neutropenic, but I'm definitely spreading the word!

In other news, what's there to say? I'm still in the hospital. SO RESTLESS. I just wanna go home already! Bitch, bitch, I know. I should just be grateful that I'm feeling good. I've been keeping myself busy doing internet-y things and playing lots of Zelda on Mike's DS (Link to the Past and Phantom Hourglass).

Shock!

I haven't posted here in awhile, because while I was home and non-neutropenic, I wanted to enjoy myself as much as possible and think about cancer as little as possible. Well, I was re-admitted for chemo round #3 about a week and a half ago and I'm still here in the hospital as I got SUPER sick this time. Yes, I always get sick from the chemo, but this time I got sicker than usual. I got a lung infection, which lead to my body going into septic shock, and let me tell you, that was NOT fun. I almost ended up in the ICU twice. The ICU docs came to see me and they prepped me in case I needed to go, but luckily in the end I was able to stay here in the oncology/hematology ward. The infection was not a result of the chemo, but I was dealing with that at the same time as side effects of the chemo, and omg it was a living nightmare. There are full days that I'm missing from my memory; all I remember from them are flashes and random images and (very super painful) moments, like some kind of nightmare-ish horror movie montage. It was awful. I would never wish this on anybody for any reason. Out of all the hospital stays I've had so far combined, I think that this particular experience has been the worst.

I don't mean to sound full of myself or anything, but I can't believe I went through and survived all that. I'm not gonna lie, I was really wondering for awhile. On one particularly horrible morning, I woke up in an absolute terrorized panic I can't describe, and my heart rate (which is normally around 70 or so) was at 140. So many doctors were sent to my room--not nurses, but doctors, and they were acting very serious and whispering amongst each other in the corner of the room, something that's never happened. I was seriously, honestly terrified that they were going to approach me at some point and tell me I'd had a small heart attack, and/or the chemo had done a number on my heart and that they wouldn't be able to continue with the treatments anymore, or something. Yet here I am, my heart's still beating (and at a normal level), and I'm due for another chemo treatment in July, sooo...we'll see how it goes! I hope they find me a transplant soon though, I really do, 'cause I'm scared there's only so much more of this my body can take. FWIW, I'm only to have 1-2 more rounds of chemo tops anyway. Although getting a transplant requires two goes of chemo as part of the procedure. Holy crap!

Speaking of transplants, when I first arrived at the hospital over a week ago, I was originally sharing a room with a guy who had just had one. But I didn't get to find out much. Not only because I'm anti-social, but also because I was hurried off to isolation, into this private room as soon as I got infected. That's the silver lining, I guess. The private room, I mean.

I'm still in the hospital and am going to be for the next few days. Looks like it's gonna be a 2-week-ish stay in all. I wanna hurry up and get home, not just for obvious reasons, but also because I'm becoming neutropenic and should be completely such by tomorrow, and the longer I stay here in this germ-infested disease tank, the higher my chances of catching something horrible and icky and getting stuck here longer. Blaaaah. I totally understand why I have to stick around though; even though I feel fine, they have to keep an eye on me and make sure I don't get sick again, and they're still feeding me antibiotics by IV, which they've slowly been weaning me off of.

I just can't get over that it's Saturday. It's so weird to miss a few days out of the week like that, because for me, it just WAS Saturday. Ugh. What a week. It's changed me.

No Day But Today

It was a bit of a bittersweet visit with my doctor today, as I found out I might need more rounds of chemo than I previously thought.  Which means this may be a MUCH tougher summer than I thought it would be, as it'll mean that I'll be constantly in and out of the hospital. Siiiiigh. :/
"You have a very aggressive type of cancer," they reminded me. "If you don't keep having consolidation treatments, you'll relapse."
I know that but I don't like hearing it. Blaaaah.

One of the many things dealing with this fucking cancer has taught me is seriously, TRULY living in the moment. I know we're all told to do that, we're all supposed to do that, but it's so hard to do! But when I get my tiny little bits of "vacation time" because I spend the rest of time either neutropenic and/or in the hospital, and when I have no idea when I'll get a transplant and no clue which direction my health will take, I have no choice but to do exactly that. When you're forced to do something, I guess that's the best way to learn how to do it.
Heh, I'm living the theme/motto of one of my favourite musicals of all time, Rent. "No day but today."

On the plus side, I'm no longer neutropenic. I've got a good two weeks until I'm being readmitted for chemo round #3 (or as I call it, HELL), so I've got a LOT of activities to pack into the next fourteen days or so---while trying to not go TOO crazy so as not to make myself sick either. :P

I'm scared of mashed potatoes.

I'm aware of how hilarious the name of this entry sounds, and I know phobias by definition are irrational, but being scared of food takes the cake, doesn't it? (No pun intended, yuck.) Well, here's some context.

I hate hospital food. Well, so does everyone. But I hate it to the point that I refuse to eat it. During my first stay, which was five weeks, I could not go five weeks without eating, and I could not eat outside food during that time as I was severely neutropenic (moreso than I am now), so the only thing they could do was feed me by IV, which I GLADLY took over the hospital food. I had been eating it, or trying to, for a few days, but the pain I felt trying to eat the food with all the sores in my mouth from leukemia made it almost impossible, so I started getting a lot of mashed or pureed food instead. But once the nausea from the chemo kicked in, I had to stop. And then I guess in my mind, I couldn't separate the hospital food from the feeling sick from chemotherapy.  So the more time that passed, the more I associated the food with being diagnosed with leukemia, since not only was that around the time I was eating the hospital food still, but the doctors came into my room and told me I had leukemia while I was eating.
 
So as you can see, to say I have a bad association with the hospital food is a bit of an understatement. Also, this was when my sense of smell was still ultra crazy super-scarily sensitive, so the smell of the food (which I could smell from down the hall) really REALLY got to me. It got so bad that I couldn't leave my room during breakfast, lunch, or dinner hours because I didn't want to be hit with the smells of patients' meals, nor did I want to accidentally see any of it. They comes delivered in these dark blue plastic containers that freak me out so badly when I see them I have to turn around and drag my IV away from them as fast as I can. If an unknowing orderly brings one to my room by mistake, I freak out. I know it's bad, but I can't help it. Just seeing those things makes me so sick. They upset me so much that I can't even feel embarrassed by little freak-outs. I just need those little blue containers of doom away from me, no matter what the cost. Just seeing them can sometimes cause me to break out into sweat and get queasy. It's ridiculous.

Today I was watching Family Guy--yes, a cartoon--and it was supposed to be Thanksgiving and so the characters were eating mashed potatoes. At one point they put a HUGE serving onto another character's plate and I started to feel a little queasy and had to look away. I felt a little off for the rest of the evening. Then at night, Mike (my husband) and I decided to watch Dexter. Guess what, a Thanksgiving episode! And that's all it took. All of the sudden, I couldn't get the most super vivid, vivid, VIVID thoughts of hospital food out of my head. Not just images--but the taste, the texture, the way it made me feel, so sick, so nausous, the pain in my mouth, the spooky "aura" of having just been diagnosed with cancer..and I just couldn't shake it. It was making me feel ill, but it wasn't physically making my stomach hurt either. I didn't feel like getting up and popping a gravol, but boy did I feel awful. And the sensation of food burning the ulcers in my mouth, the creepy aura of the hospital...I just couldn't shake it, and didn't know how to get rid of that feeling. It was just so vivid, so intense.

Finally, I ate a yummy corn muffin that Mike had made and covered with margarine and jam. It didn't feel like, taste like, or smell like mashed potatoes. It didn't burn my mouth. It was OK. It worked for awhile, at least.

Now I'm writing this and...I dunno. I feel OK. I can't avoid mashed potatos (and similar dishes) for the rest of my life. I'm gonna have to get used to them somehow. Exposure, I'm guessing. But omg, what a strange evening, and not in a good way.

Doesn't the body work in strange and absolutely seemingly-unproductive useless ways sometimes?!

Btw, I wrote all this under the influence of zopiclone, so I hope it makes sense. My apologies for any spelling/grammar/logic disasters here within. ;)

It's the little things

Like looking up things online, looking at stuff I'd like to buy for my students when I eventually get my own classroom...wait, my own classroom? What if I never make it that far?

Or hearing about movies that are in the works now, to be released in the summer of 2014 or even 2015. Will I still be around? Will I get to see it?

It's a rather shitty feeling, to put it pretty fucking mildly.

I HOPE IT RAINS ON ALL OF YOU.

I WISH EVERYONE ON FACEBOOK WOULD SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT DRINKING ALCOHOL IN THE SUN FOR ONE SECOND. JUST FOR ONE GODSDAMN SECOND.

WHY YES, I AM BITTER. WOULDN'T YOU BE?! >:/

Don't faint, bitch!

Well, I guess my red blood cells are starting to disappear, considering I just became totally out of breath from washing the dishes. Seriously, I feel like I'm about to black out. Fun stuff! They can't be THAT low considering I had a blood test yesterday and I didn't need a transfusion, but they're obviously dropping if I'm this short of breath from doing such a mundane activity. Of course, that could also be due to (or in combination from) being so weak from the chemo. Either way, my red blood cells are going to drop considerably sooner or later. I wonder when my next (and last!) consolidaton chemo is. It'll be my last go of consolidation chemo, but not my last dose of chemo all together: whenever I get my transplant, I'll need chemo again. Fuck I hate chemo! Though I guess that's a useless thing to say. Is there anyone in this world who ENJOYS chemo? lol. I mean, we all love that it destroys cancer and can save our lives, but omg does it ever kick your ass at the same time.

All right. It's 2 in the afternoon. I woke up at 11 AM and I have yet to eat anything. The trick now is to make myself something to eat without fainting. I accept this challenge! o__O

Vinegar Days

My title may sound like the title of a Japanese pop song, but it accurately describes how bitter I've been. Today the weather has been absolutely beautiful where I live (Montreal, Canada)--just full on summer weather. Everyone's out and about and having a good time and I can't join them. I went out onto my balcony to get some fresh air and that made things worse, as I live on busy street so I all I saw were large groups of people giggling and smiling and having a grand old time in the sun, some of them carrying cases of beer, and tons of cyclists were out, too. Whole groups of them. I just sat on my balcony and sulked. What could I do. I'm neutropenic, so I can't be around crowds. It's going to be a long, restless, boring month.
BUT.
I am grateful I get to spend it at home rather than in the hospital, and that is an understatement.

Speaking of the hospital, I gotta be there at 7:45 tomorrow morning for a blood test (and perhaps a transfusion later in the day), and it's 1:39 AM right now. I should probably be getting to bed soon. I took a zopiclone about twenty minutes ago and I already feel it kicking in, so hopefully falling alseep quickly will be the usual sudden smack into darkness it usually is. The danger is sleeping through the alarm, lol. I'm sooo NOT one of those people who sleeps through alarams--EVER--but once zopiclone is invovled? Holy shit. That crap knocks me out goooood. Although once in awhile I'll wake up from it, finding myself talking or ranting in gibberish. That part is kind of scary. Thankfully I stay in my bed and don't sleepwalk or anything. So far. :P

Well, my eyelids are already starting to close, so I guess I should be getting some sleep before waking up super early to get blood removed and then possibly transfused right back in. Oh, and to be interviewed by my psychiatrist's student for his final exam. My psych said I would be the perfect candidate for him to interview, as I've got "both problems" going on. When I asked what he meant by that, he pointed out that I'm both physically AND mentally ill. So yay, I'm a great specimen for someone's final exam. Because feeling like a living test subject is *sooo* much fun!

Irobec

I had a really interesting and happy dream last night. I dreamt my sisters and I took a road trip to a North American town (no idea where...somewhere in Canada or the US), and then we went for a walk. We ended up sooooo far from our hotel and I insisted we could walk back, so we did, but it was so very very far. We decided to do it anyway, and we walked across a really pretty university campus, and the field looked too big, but we found a shortcut through a hole in a fence. Then we ended up in more fields which were really on top of roofs of a museum, but the museum was housing live African animals, and there were dangerous animals like panthers, tigers, lions, etc. everywhere. We quickly realized we didn't need to go on the roofs so we took another path that was street-level, and that's all we had to do to be safe from the wild animals; it was so simple. Then I noticed that the museum had craaazy-ass barbwire fencing all around it so the wild animals couldn't get off the roofs and hurt anyone anyway, so I realized we were super-safe. We kept walking and walking and looking for the street our hotel was on, which I vividly remember was called Irobec. We walked for so long that it started to get dark and then we found a park with two paths, both paths went the same way, they were parallel to each other. But one went through the park and the other was the sidewalk through town. I lead us on the path through the park because I thought it would be different and more fun. Finally we got to the next street and it was Irobec! We found our hotel and we were so happy. Overall, it was a very happy dream. I hope it's a good omen.

??!

Boy am I glad to be home.

In other news...bleh. I find that I can be totally cheerful or OK for very long stretches of time. And all of the sudden, the fact that I might die hits me, and it's the most horrible feeling I've ever felt in the whole world. It's not a paralyzing-with-fear feeling the way an anxiety attack is, not even remotely close. It's a feeling of such....bitterness and sadness. I don't even know how to describe it.

From the bad...to the GOOD. The oh-so-very good. :)

This chemo was tough. Really tough. I got a bad fever and apparently was twitching from it, I was in and out...sleeping sucked, I'd sleep for twenty-minute intervals which felt three hours long each, while having icky bad trippy dreams I would only wish on murderers, child molesters, and Hitler. The chemo tired me out to the point that one day all I did was get up to go the bathroom and that was enough to give me trouble breathing, and send my heart rate up to 120-125 or something like that (it's usually around the 80s for me) and OMG, that was awful. It HURT. Having my heart slam against my ribcage like that....euuuurgghhhh. It felt like I was running up and down stairs as fast as I could while I was just lying in bed, ach what a sensation! Anyway, that was all crap. Chemo's done though and now they've just been keeping me for observation and antibiotics, and it turns out today that they need to give me 2 blood transfusions, so, wohoo! I'm gonna be bouncing off the walls later. I'm getting benadryl right now, so I'm going to be BUUUZZZZZZZZZED soon.

Having a roommate while going through chemo has been...it's been awful. I feel SO MUCH GUILT typing that that I'm not even going to go into detail about it now; I'll wait until I get home for that (I'm getting discharged tomorrow, barring any infection or problem with my health or whatever). That's right, I feel so much shame in complaining about having a roommate (because she's off sooo much worse than me) that I can't even type about it when she's in the same room as me. How absurd is that.

Now that the complaining is out of the way, an AMAZING thing happened. While being stuck in here, I had to miss my favourite band, Muse, perform at the Bell Centre (Montreal's huge center for hockey and concerts). My husband and some friends of mine bought our tickets last fall and had been looking forward to going for a very long time, so I was heartbroken that I couldn't go. I gave my ticket to another one of my friends, told him to have fun, figured they'd tell me Muse's set list afterward, and that was that.

Little did any of us know, one of my friend's aunts was up to some kind of awesome. She contacted the band's manager to tell them about me. Well, lo and behold, they ended up dedicating a song at the concert to me. (Starlight, for those of you who are Muse fans.) That's right, Muse performed at the Bell Centre and dedicated a song (and one of their rather old-school extreme popular ones, too) to ME. Matthew Bellamy said MY NAME. And he said it correctly, which blows my mind, because most people do NOT pronounce it correctly the first time! To say I am in awe and totally shocked and grateful and happy and amazed by all this is the understatement of the century. I can't even explain how I feel. I think I need to invent a new words to explain how I feel. Actually, lol, FWIW, I've been telling people that I'm STARlight struck. ;P HAR HAR. Bad pun, I know.

Anyway, the night of the concert, I got a lot of texts and Facebook messages about that, lemme tell you! And the next morning...wow did I wake up to a lot of messages and comments and general love from all my awesome friends. One of them even found a video of the moment (along with the whole song) on Youtube, so I got to experience it for myself.

I'm still absolutely beside myself with WTF in the best way possible. It's incredible, just absolutely and positively out of this world. And the night this happened, I slept soundly and had the happiest dream I remember having since being diagnosed with cancer. What a load of AWESOME. <3

Round 2, here we go!

I got called at 10:30 this morning to be re-admitted for round 2 of chemo...for 12:30! That's right, two hours' notice. Never mind a DAY'S notice, which I thought I was gonna get (and which I thought would be too short notice as it is), but two hours. And the call woke me up; I was sleeping in and felt like shit as I had nearly an entire bottle of wine last night, and my body is NOT used to having alcohol. I REFUSED to get out of bed until Mike came home to take me to the hospital as they called him as well, and he called them back and managed to negotiate and extra hour for me to get ready. I felt like crap and indulged in my hangover rountine, which involves weed, greasy food, and lots and lots of coffee. So I then had less than three hours to gather and pack my stuff and mentally prepare myself for another hospital stay, all while hungover and high as a kite. Good times. As I wrote on my Facebook, ca commence bien (we're off to a good start!).

When we got to the hospital we found out I didn't even have my own room. I have a shared room with a lady who's waaaaayyyyy off worse than I am. I recognize her from when I was here the last time, actually. She seems to be in really bad shape and seems really nice and much more friendly than I am. It's too bad I'm so anti-social or I'd find out what her story is. Anyway, I'm not going to be neutropenic during my stay so I don't need a private room, so I understand why I'm here. I feel bad complaining 'cause honestly, this lady is in baaaad shape. She can't even get out of bed or walk or anything. Omg. I feel so sorry for her. But I bet the fucking last thing she wants is pity.

Anyway, it's 11:42 PM and I've been getting chemo for a little over an hour now. They're doing it through a vein for now but apparently I'm getting a pic line tomorrow. I hope they do it through the arm again and not the chest (called a hickman)! I don't want a chest one. I already know I have to one for the transplant and that's blah enough.

But yeah, my vein. OK, so, apparently the chemo from last time really weakened my veins (and apparently this isn't too unusual), because the nurse, J, could not find a spot to insert the IV. I was stabbed with needles over and over again as she tried over the course of a half fucking HOUR to find a spot of my vein that could stand it; she had to be super certain that my vein was all right as this was chemo going through it, not just saline or some crap. So I lied there for a half hour as inserted a needle into different parts of my arm over and over. It hurt like a BITCH. Things got worse when I heard her start muttering under breath, and when the "fucks" and "...shits" started, that's when I started to worry a little.

Eventually another nurse, D, came in to try to help her, and D was told me how J was the QUEEN of IV inserts and if she couldn't find a good vein, then nobody could. And--here comes the gross part---they tried to force their way into a part of a vein that just couldn't take it and it broke and blood spurt out all over my arm. That too hurt like a bitch, and was really quite gross.

After a good half hour they finally found a spot on my wrist that withstood the IV, so huzzah. Now I'm getting chemotherapy that's quite different from last time. Some of its potential dangers include brain damage and kidney failure, but I'm not scared. Just the opposite; I'm pumped up! It's almost like a kind of training for my transplant, since I'm so scared of getting it due to all the possible dangers involved. So chemo is kind of like practice for that. I don't know if that makes any sense, the way I'm explaining it, but that's how I feel. It's hard to put into words. Anyway, I'm in the type of mood in which I feel like I can tackle anything, so I guess that's good! :)

Worst doctor appointment ever!

On Monday I had an appointment with my doctor, I have to see him every Monday now, it seems. I still don't have a date for my next round of chemo, as it all depends on when a bed in the ward will be freed up, and who's next on the list. As they're looking for room for me asap and it's April 17th right now, and the Muse concert is April 23rd, it looks like it's almost certain that I'll be missing the concert. I'm not giving up my ticket until I know for 100 percent sure, but it's looking more and more certain. I'm so heartbroken over this. I had been looking forward to this since last fall. This sucks so much.
I also have a ticket for Sherlock on May 5th, and I doubt I'll be able to go to that, either--even if I'm out of the hospital by then (they're not keeping me in for observation this time, they're kicking me right out after the chemo's done, unless I have an infection), I'll be neutropenic so I won't be allowed to go to a fucking theatre, of all things.
And I'll most likely be missing my husband's birthday, too (May 4th).
Fuck fuck fuck. This on top of missing my OWN birthday, Nuit Blanche, and St Patrick's Day. Fuck you, cancer. Fuck you so hard!
I swear, this summer I'm going to throw the biggest party EVER. Like, HUGE. It's going to be a combination of a FUCK cancer party, belated birthday celebration for myself, and making up for missing all those other cool things that I waited months upon months for. Maybe I'll even rent a hall, I don't know. Cuz I don't wanna just have it in a bar or something, and my apartment is too small to hold more than 3-4 people at a time. I don't have money to rent a hall, but IDGAF. I'm gonna go all out. I'll figure something out.

The appointment bummed me out in multiple ways. My doctor felt the need to remind me that I only had a 40-50% chance of beating this thing, reminding me that neither chemo nor a transplant would necessarily save my life. He told me this right when I finally, finally, FINALLY got the stupid statistics out of my mind, which took so long to do. Now I'm feeling down and kind of deflated all over again. I don't know why he felt the need to tell me that. I don't wanna hear that shit. I ALREADY KNOW THAT. Now I'm home and finally feeling good...fuck you. Apparently he hadn't known that I had already signed the consent forms for the transplant, so I guess he was trying to tell me that a transplant wasn't a guaranteed failsafe solution or whatever. But still. Fuck you doctor, for bringing me down. You're a nice guy, but fuck you!

PMS and cancer together. GOOD TIMES.

I haven't posted in awhile as after only being home for barely two days, I got a fever and had to go back to the hospital. I spent four days in the ER and the "short stay" ward. It was not pleasant. Also, there was no wi-fi there so I didn't have the internet to disctract me (or update anyone with). BLAH. On top of it all, I'm getting my period now. I didn't get my period last month because the doctors stopped it with Lupron, but I'm no longer getting Lupron, so this will be my first time getting my period while cancerfied, so this should be quite the awful adventure. I get awful, AWFUL periods. As in, I throw up, I get migraines, have to miss several days of work (when I'm working), can't stay far from the bathroom and end up in there 20 minutes at a time several times a day, etc...it's so bad that I actually had an ultrasound scheduled in early March to check for endometriosis before I got sick, but then once I got diagnosed with cancer, well...that was that. I actually got an ultrasound whilst in the hospital and they didn't find anything endometriosisy, so I'm not sure what's going to happen with that. Usually at this point of the month I pop a dangerous amount of anaprox and smoke a shit ton of weed, and lately this has been bothering me a LOT because, well, I'm 32 and I kind of care what happens to my liver and lungs. Now it's even more of an issue because my liver and lungs specifically have to be in good condition for my transplant. But what can I do?! I've seen like thirty doctors about my periods and we've just about run out of options at this point, so...*sigh*. I saw a private doctor in January and he prescribed me a type of birth control that supposedly will stop my periods called Micronor, but I have to wait until I'm actually bleeding to take it. My periods are like 9 days of bloating and horrible pain and only a few random days here and there of bleeding, so I have no idea when I'll be able to start the Micronor. For all I know, my period might end up coinciding with my next round of chemo, but the doctor told me if that happens, they'll send me to the ER and give me a shot of something (I forget what) that apparently stops my period within hours. Why can't they just give that to me all the time? I'm never having kids so...yeah. Plus I'm finally probably going to be infertile, especially with the transplant, so YAY. No asshole doctor can use the stupid asshole excuse of "I might change my mind" (seriously, who changes their mind at fucking 32???? I'm not 20, for fuck's sake!), so rip my damn uterus out or do whatever ya gotta do already.

In the meantime, thank the gods for grass.

So yeah, remission...

So I'm home now, and omg is it ever weird. In both good and bad ways.

Yesterday morning I woke up in the hospital and my doctor came in and said they didn't have the biopsy results yet. Then he went, "Oh wait. Wait a second!" and ran out of the room, came back a minute later, and quickly said, "I made a mistake. We DO have the results, and you have less than 5 percent blasts, you're in remission, congratulations!"
My response involved a lot of swearing--I couldn't help it, I was so happy!
I believe my exact words were, "holy shit, are you fucking kidding me???????"
Btw, my mentioning my doctor's mistake is NOT my rolling my eyes at him or saying "look how stupid he is!". Quite the opposite! I love my doctors, particularly that one. He's a little goofy, and I mean that as a compliment. He's quite loveable.

Anyway, so I got discharged and I'm at home. I have an appointment with another doctor of mine on Monday and some blood tests, and then in a month I have to be re-admitted for my next round of chemo. I'm really disappointed about that, because originally I was told I was going to be a day patient for the chemo, but now I find out I'm going to readmitted so I'll basically be in the hospital for the same amount of time all over again. I'll be in and out of the hospital for the rest of the summer. Sigh. The good news is (and this is REALLY good news), I found out today that Mike got a theatre-related job in the city for the summer, which means he'll be around! He doesn't have to go to Ontario to work now! Originally he was going to have to, and that thought terrified me--of all people, I want my HUSBAND to be around when I'm going through cancer and chemo, ya know?!

Guess what?

REMISSION!!!!!!! <3

Fingers crossed!

I should be finding out the results of my biopsy tomorrow...pleaaaasssee let it be good news! Luckily it feels like my sleeping pill is starting to kick in, so hopefully I won't have to anxiously lay awake wondering much longer...

The nights are the worst

I feel the stupid sleeping pill kicking in...it's time to shut off the laptop and hope this damn thing works. I hate sleeping pills, but I hate nights even more. Nights are the worst. During the day, I'm pretty good at keeping myself distracted, but at night all there is to do is lie in bed in think. And all I can think about is dying and what if I *do* end up dying soon, what if I *don't* make it, what if I get a call for a transplant in a few weeks and my body rejects it or it rejects my body or any of the other 398 potentially-lethal things my doc's boss listed happens and I end up being dead two months from now. It's not an impossibility, and that's FUCKED-UP.
My heart hammers against my chest about 5999 times per minute at this point and I can't sleep cuz I'm paralyzed with fear and horror and yeeeeeah, this is why I take sleeping pills.
FUCK being alone with your thoughts; maybe it's one of those things that can kill you in the end.

One kind of freedom

I've been taken off my IV machine. I can't explain what it feels like after being tethered to it for an entire month. It's going to take a long time to get used to. But omg I feel so freeeee! I keep trying to adjust/move around wires every time I get up and then I'm so pleasantly surprised when I realize I don't have to. It feels great. It feels AMAZING. I can't find the words to describe it.

Earlier this afternoon Alex was here (before they took me off the IV machine) and he took this picture of me pretending to kick it. What perfect timing that turned out to be, since I can now use this as a celebratory picture! :P

The bathroom feels SO much bigger without this stupid machine taking up most of the space. Just the act of going to the bathroom is sooooo much easier without having to drag a stupid machine with me each time.
Moving around my room is a DREAM.

Speaking of dreams, sleeping tonight should be interesting without that damn machine. Ah, dreams. That's an entry for another time. That'd be a long entry to write. The crazy-ass dreams I've had since I've been in here....wow! Although I haven't had any since the doctor switched my sleeping pills, and this makes me sad.

Biopsy time!

I'm finally feeling a LOT better physically. The fevers, the mouth sores, the dizzyness, the zoning out...they're all gone. I feel way better today. Except for the headaches and the pain in my back from the bone marrow extraction yesterday morning, though dilaudid helps take care of that.

Right, the bone marrow extraction. So that was done yesterday morning and they gave me ambien, which they told me to put under my tongue so that it would dissolve instantly. It did, which was really weird and tasted awful. They then gave me a shot of morphine, so I've now had all three opiates that I'm offered here as an AML patient in this hospital (codeine, dilaudid, and morphine). The extraction was done differently than last time, administered by different doctors who gave me different drugs. What pissed me off a lot was that I lay super, SUPER still, but every once in awhile, the doc would hit a part of bone that would make my body jerk forward--not because I wanted it to, but as a total reflex. And he kept reminded me not to move, to which I kept replying I couldn't help it, it was a reflex. Like a hammer hitting a knee. At one point he finally said, "Maybe we should just give you another shot of morph--" "YES!" I didn't give him a chance to finish his sentence and everyone in the room laughed. I got my second shot of morphine not even 2 minutes later and damn it felt good once it kicked it. But getting that shit injected into you? HOLY HELL. When the nurse was injecting it, she said, "it's going to burn, OK?" and I kind of scoffed, I was like, "Oh, this is nothing," to which she replied, "...it's not finished yet." She took the needle out and I was like, "Oh, that wasn't so ba--aahhhHHHH OOOOOMG!", it felt like little sunburns in my veins! But I was laughing too, from being so cocky.
Anyway, the bone marrow extraction sucked (HAHA, pun not intended), actually I asked to see what my bone marrow looked like as Mike was here for the first one and he said it looked like mangled noodles, but I couldn't see as I was face down on the bed for that one. So they showed it to me and you know what it looked like? A little line. A straight little line. So boring! Oh well.

Anyway, they're gonna biopsy the shit outta that thing and give me the results on Tuesday. And so far ALL the doctors seem SUPER positive about it. They all come to see me all excited, saying, "Your white blood cells, they're back! You're doing good, you're looking good, eh? We wanna send you home next week!" And I'm just like "....well, assuming the results of the biopsy are good, right?" To which they always just say, "hmm, yeah!"
Do they know something I don't know? Why are they so super optimistic? They must have a reason to be; they've been doing this for awhile, they know what they're doing. Ahhh, I don't want them to get my hopes up for nothing! What do they know? In the words of the glorious Elaine Benes from Seinfeld, tell me! Telllll meeeeeee!!!!

This is what they call a catch-22, right?

Oh FFS, my doctor just spent 30 minutes listing all the horrible, horrible ways a transplant can kill me and how the first year post-transplant has a mortality rate of 25%. And, during that time the leukemia has a 20% chance of returning. And, I found out my sister's NOT a match. And, if I don't get the transplant, I'm very likely to die within the next year or two. And, lots of other fun info. Upon my learning this, a perky woman came into my room asking if she could perform reiki on me and it took ALL I HAD to not tell her to FUCK RIGHT OFF. REIKI. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME. Where's the apothecary in this damn place?! 

Mortality

ARGHHHHH FML. I've learned it's not the best idea to read about other people's leukemia battles, but sometimes they're shoved in my face without my asking (like on TV, etc) and the results are often the same: people MY AGE (or younger) who all die within a year or 2. FUCK THAT. Fuuuuck that shit.  I'm not posting this for sympathetic comments or false hope, I just had to get this off my chest as if I don't cool down soon I'm going to lose my fucking temper and trash this room. I am so angry, so upset and angry I can't quite find the words to express it. I know some people survive, but I've read about WAY more lost battles than success stories, and it fucking sucks. I've read so many other people's blogs and Facebook pages where their friends are all like, "yeaaah you can do this!" and they're like "Fuck yes I can!" and then they even get better...only to have a relapse and die a year later.

I don't like these odds. Some days I feel more positive than others but something I saw mentioned on TV tonight during a hockey game about a 29-year-old who lost her battle with leukemia...I don't know, it was kind of like the last straw, the one that really made me fear for my own mortality. But I feel anger and frustration moreso than fear. It's hard to explain. I don't want to fucking die!

Oh, and today already sucked as I spent it with a fucking fever that went up and down, blood cultures, and more x-rays. Yay.

Seriously? FML.

Wheeeeeeeeelchair! :P

I got a new mouth ulcer last week and FUCK does it hurt. Today the pain was just unbearable but as I'm neutropenic, the nurses can't give me anything except painkillers. I got a shot of dilaudid and it worked for about twenty minutes, after that it hurt like hell to talk so I just mimed and whispered and wrote on paper. I was high as all hell though (well, this IS dilaudid we're talking about) and I had to go get an X-ray, so the transport guy had to bring me via wheelchair down to the 4th floor to the X-ray ward and let me tell you, getting pushed around on a wheelchair while strung out on dilaudid is a LOT of fun. You know those dreams where it feels like you're flying? It was kind of like that. Good times!

Well, when I came back from my X-ray my mouth was still hurting, so they gave me lidocaine in a little shot glass. I'm going to try to remember to take a picture of the next dosage as it truly does look like a shooter of some delicious type of alcohol. Anyway, THAT finally worked, but boy does it feel weird, as it numbs your entire mouth, tongue included. o_O But whatever. It works. I can take it every 4 hours, so come 10:30, damn straight I'm having another!

ARGH!!

I am so angry! In my Dead Celebrities post, I wrote this:

The other performer is Minako Honda, an 80s pop star who turned into a very successful Japanese Broadway actress. She was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia (so, NOT the same kind as mine) in January of 2005 after feeling short of breath (well well) at a concert. She kept getting treatment and kept having relapses and died seven months later. She was only 38.

I found out today that acute myelogenous leukemia is the same thing as acute myeloid leukemia, so it IS the same type as mine! I am SO ANGRY from finding this out. Not scared, not worried, but ANGRY. So pissed off. I hate being angry in the hospital, there's NOTHING to do with my anger. Well, except write, I guess. It's better than nothing.

Dammit, Minako-san! No offense lady, you were AWESOME, but I am NOT having remotely the same fate as you. I REFUSE. >:/

Slight headache? HAVE SOME OPIATES!!!!!!! o_O

lol, I had the following conversation with my (awesome) nurse through the bathroom door (which made it weirder somehow):

My nurse: Hey, how's your headache? I can't give you tylenol because it might mask symptoms of an infection. We can give you dilaudid instead!

Me: Uhhhh....wow, no, that's really quite OK! My headache's really not THAT bad, I'll just wait it out.

Nurse: Oh, you don't have to do that! How about codeine? Have you ever tried that?

Me: Wow, these are really strong meds. My headache's really not a big problem. It's OK.

Nurse: Oh, codeine's really not that strong. It's fine. I mean, your body will turn it into morphine, but it's OK!

Me: ..............I think I'm OK for now. But if it gets worse can I let you know?

Nurse: Of course! You can change your mind at any time.

Now it's been a couple hours since that conversation and my head still hurts quite a bit so I'm thinking, fuck it, I'll just take the damn codeine. I think I need to make a list of all the new meds I'm trying. lol having cancer is gonna turn me into a druggie. :P

In which I find out my life expectancy

Today my doctor came in with the not-so-great extensive results from my bone marrow biopsy last month. Not-so-great, but it could be worse. It turns out the level of my cancer is "intermediate". So. Basically? I have a 40% chance of still being alive in 3 years. If I get a successful stem cell transplant, my chances of still being alive at the point go up to 50-55%. Not great, but as my doctor pointed out, things could be much, much worse. I'm basically right in the middle. Something else I found out is that stem cell transplants can actually be quite dangerous--there are a lot of risks involved that can result in death. Lovely. He told me it's completely up to me if I want the transplant, but I definitely want one if it's going to raise my chances of survival by 15%! Besides, I was under the impression I was getting one anyway. Originally they were going to wait until they found out if my sister was a match, but they're no longer waiting for that. They're going to start searching the data banks as soon as I give my written consent. They didn't tell me when they're giving me the forms---it better be soon! I'm ready to give my consent right now, dammit!

I also found out some other stuff about my cancer. I've only had it for a few months--that's how fast and aggressive it is. Wow. That makes sense to me, as it was a few months ago when I first started to feel short of breath.
Also, they have no idea what caused it. The number one cause for leukemia is age; the average age to develop my kind of leukemia is apparently 68. I'm only 32, so obviously that's not the reason. Another possibility for developing leukemia is being exposed to industrial chemicals, or being treated for other cancers, neither of which apply to me. So no one has any idea what caused my leukemia. As my doctor pointed out, lung cancer is caused by too much smoking, liver cancer is caused by too much drinking, diabetes is caused by not eating properly, but leukemia is caused by ????????. I like the analogy he gave--it's like the cancer opened up a phone book, chose a random name, and said, "YOU!"

This whole thing about being so young to develop leukemia should work in my favour. He said age is really on my side. Also, I don't have many mutated genes, so that should help in finding a stem cell match. If I can get a transplant and if the transplant goes well, and if I can make it to three years, I have a good chance of living a LOT longer. So let's do this!

I hate my IV machine

I have a headache from not sleeping well, as usual. I often sleep 8-9 hours a night, but it's not good sleep. Either I have nightmares (last night I had MULTIPLE nightmares, ugggh that was unpleasant as all hell), or my stupid IV machine goes off. Sometimes I take half a sleeping pill to fall asleep, and it knocks me out, but it works a little too well--if my IV machine starts beeping in the middle of the night, I'll hear it in my sleep, but I won't be able to wake myself up to press the bell to call the nurse to come turn it off. It's so annoying! The night before last, I tried to wake myself up over the course of a half hour. A half hour of that fucking beeping. OMG. A couple of times I managed to wake myself up, but when I did, I fell right back asleep before I could press the bell. And when I finally DID wake myself up completely, it took another 15 minutes before a nurse came to turn off the beeping. That was a great night.

I really, really hate my IV machine. On top of the annoying sounds it makes, it's so big and clunky and really a GIGANTIC pain in the ass to lug around. Dragging it with me to the bathroom is no fun at all, and trying to maneuver around the room with it is close to impossible. The way my room is configured, there's very little space between my bed and the table next to the wall, the machine that takes my vitals, and the cupboard, so getting from one end of the room to the other is close to impossible. It's beyond frustrating. Sometimes I get so aggravated that I just smash the IV machine through anything that's in my way, which has nearly causes it to fall down, which would be terrible if it actually happened for a number of reasons. Arrrghhhhh.

Anyway. I've said it before and I'll say it again--thank the gods for Jpop!

Ughhhhh so tired. Maybe I should take a nap. But I'll just end up being disturbed by people coming in here, so maybe not.