Miami, my ami, et mes amis

I went to Miami and it was simply wonderful! What an amazing city. It stole my heart, as they say. I'm not even normally too much of a beach & ocean kinda person, but C'MON. This place is beautiful. And the fact I got to escape the cold harsh winter of Montreal to go? Simply amazing. In fact, there was a blizzard the very day I left Montreal! It was so wonderful being on the beach (we stayed in South Beach) every day, walking through the sand, by the palm trees, hitting the outdoor clubs...

Going back to Montreal was tough, but on the bright side, Mike (my husband) was coming with me, as he's home for the Christmas holidays. :) So, that's pretty awesome, to put it mildly. Christmas break 'officially' started (as in, schools are closed) the day before yesterday (Friday) and last night, Mike and I rented out a hotel room with some friends to celebrate those who donated funds to the Light the Night foundation, for Leukemia and Lymphoma research. It was so much fun! I have nothing but unmeasurable amounts of love and respect for my friends for donating their bucks to cancer research and towards hopefully one day finding a cure; the LEAST I could do in return is throw them some kind of party. I am blessed to be surrounded by such incredible and caring people!

Triggers are weird, unpredictable, nasty little things.

Holiday travel

Christmas time! One of my favourite times of the year. I gotta change my layout to something Christmas-related. But I update my blog so unfrequently, it'll probably end up getting stuck with that layout til like mid-January. :P But then again...does that matter? hahaha.

Sometimes I have super clear random memories of being in the hospital and I'm just so GLAD to not be in there that I'm just so chill with whatever happens in my life otherwise; like, I don't care about anything that happens pretty much as long as I don't have to be in the hospital again. But sometimes that's kind of a vicious circle, and counter-productively (for lack of a better word) causes anxiety, as I'll think about how happy I am to be where I am, and I don't want anything to stop that happiness and take it away from me, so I'll get anxious about getting sick again and having to return to the hospital, thus having that comfort taken away. Vicious circle bullshit! lol

I'm leaving for Miami on Wednesday to meet up with my husband. I'm staying there for a week and then we're coming back together. He's going to stay here in Montreal for the Christmas holidays, so he'll be here for Christmas and New Year's, which is beyond wonderful! He goes back to the US on January 2nd though, so it'll pass by much too fast, I'm afraid. Next time I see him after that is in mid-February, when I'll be visiting him in Calgary.

Marc-André Skelling

Things seem to be going well for Mai Duong (happily!), but unfortunately not so much for Marc-André Skelling. He has a month left to find a compatible donor or else HE'LL DIE. He's only 23 years old! This is ridiculous! If you're a reader of this blog and/or a friend of mine and you have yet to donate blood and/or get swabbed, DO IT. At the verrryyy least, spread the word?!

USA travels

Since I last wrote here I went to Cleveland, which is a really nice city. I want to go back. If I get to move to Toronto next year, I'll be closer. Mostly I just want to go to Chicago though, where my husband is now; I've been there twice, but a looong time ago. How long ago? Once where I was 4 and again when I was 8. So the last time was 25 years ago! Ha! I remember it quite well though. I enjoyed it a lot. Still, it would obviously be quite different as an adult. ;) And I'm sure Chicago has changed a lot in the past 2 1/2 decades.

On the way back from Cleveland I had a 3-hour stop in Detroit. So I hung out in one of the airport bars (that airport is HUGE, man!) and just listened to people talk. I love Americans and I love their accents, omg. I love their culture and pretty much everything about the USA. I wish I could live there but it's just not that simple nor easy (my husband & I have looked into it before). We haven't given up on that dream yet though!

For now, plenty of travelling to the USA, at least. So there was NYC and Cleveland in October, and coming up next in December in Miami. Never been there (the only place I've been to in Florida is Orlando for Disneyworld), so it's exciting! 

I have (yet another) cold, and had to cancel my weekend plans, so I ordered in Chinese food. Which I guess is good food for a cold! SPICY. *__* I gotta go get my flu shot...

LOTS of travel! :)

Ahh! I haven't updated in a month in a half.

Well, it's been a busy month and a half. I got to go to one of my absolute favourite places in the world--New York City!! I used to go there twice a year back in the day, but I haven't been since May 2011, so it was about time I had returned. Also, for all the times I've been to New York, this was the first time I had gone in October. I've been there in the winter, for Labour Day weekend, and a ton of times during the summer, but never at this time of year. What a perfect time to go. The reason I went was to go see Morning Musume in concert. Morning Musume is a jpop group I've been listening to since I was 17 years old! That's 16 years of being fan (though to be really honest I've been an on & off kind of fan, haha). But omg. To see them in concert was the most amazing thing ever. I went with my best friend who's as obsessed with Morning Musume as I am and I could not have asked for better company. It was just the best time. And we took advantage of being in Manhattan and hung out in Times Square and SoHo, it was GREAT! We also went to Tom's Restaurant, the SEINFELD diner, and as big Seinfeld fans as we both are, for some reason neither of us had ever gone. So it was wonderful finally getting to cross that off our wish list. :)

Speaking of travelling, I also went to Nova Scotia in September to visit my husband. I've always wanted to go to the Maritimes, so that was wonderful! I got to visit Halifax while I was there, which was really cool. It's a nice little city. Nova Scotia overall is very beautiful. Very different from Quebec, so it was a great experience. There's so much more of Nova Scotia I'd like to see, to say nothing of the rest of the Maritimes!

My husband continues with his tour, travelling from city to city in both Canada and the USA. In a week I'm off to Cleveland to visit him. I'm very grateful that I'm able to do all this travelling and that I can see him so often. <3

Friends acting awful

When I got diagnosed with cancer, so many of my friends said they'd be there for me no matter what, and if I ever needed anything, just ask. I never asked anything until a few months ago, when the situation with Mai Duong happened. I asked people to share her info to help her find a donor. You think that'd be an easy thing to help me with, seeing as it takes less than 4 seconds to share a link and doesn't cost a cent. Some of my friends were awesome and shared right away (some of them I didn't even need to ask!) But a lot of people? Nope. So few people wanted to do it. And even among some that did, it was only after me begging them to do so. What is that? I thought they wanted to help me? So I ask them for their help and it's something free that literally takes less than 5 seconds to do and they don't want to bother? What the fuck?

It boggles my mind. I can't understand it no matter how hard I try. It's shameful. Sharing a link is not a lot to ask (ESPECIALLY SEEING AS THEY ASKED ME HOW THEY COULD HELP IN THE FIRST PLACE), and it could save someone's life who has leukemia. LIKE ME.

It's like...stop acting shitty and share the link, ya know?

I have more to rant about on a similar subject, but one bit at a time. The other rant will come later.

Other folks with blood cancers, part II

Also, I forgot to mention this on my post last night; I keep sharing stuff on Facebook for Mai Duong, the Vietnamese woman who is in desperate need of a donor. Asians (and other visible minorities) are so very much under-represented in the stem cell/bone marrow donor registry. If you haven't sent for a swab kit, do it! It takes 5 minutes, doesn't hurt, and can save a life. It doesn't matter where you live; the registry is global! The whole world has access to it. Please do it. Even if you're not Asian. There's no such thing as too many donors. Recently I've been sharing info about a young man of 23 (!) named Marc-André Skelling who also desperately needs a donor. He has Hodgkin's lymphoma and is of Irish and French origin.

Here is Marc-André Skelling's Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/trouvonsundonneur

*It's in french; if anyone reading this doesn't know french and wants me to translate, just ask me and I'll be happy to translate anything you want word for word. :)

 I shared Mai's info a few posts ago, but here's her Facebook page again:

https://www.facebook.com/savemaiduong

Also, Mai's website, which explains the process of a bone marrow transplant and many other things. There's a lot of good info here; not just on Mai, but on stem cells, bone marrow, transplants, donors, where you can get swab kits (no matter where you live in the world), etc:

sosmai.com/en/

Please please please take 5 minutes to send for a swab kit and send it back! LIVES can be saved. Please. <3

Travelling! :)

Ack, how long has it been since I last posted here?! Over a month. Well, I'm certainly doing better in terms of loneliness; I'm much better adjusted to being on my own now. Plus, I just came back from visiting my husband a few days ago. I stayed with him for a week in small-town Ontario and oh what a nice little vacation it was! So VERY different indeed from life in the big city. It was so wonderful seeing him and it made it that much harder to be alone again after, but I bounced back quicker this time. Plus I'm visiting him again in 3 weeks, this time in Nova Scotia. I've never been there (or anywhere in the Maritimes, for that matter), so to say I'm excited is a bit of an understatement. His contract involves him travelling around, so I'm going to be visiting him about once a month or so in the places he's sticking around in (some cities he's really just passing through). Around Halloween I'm going to go see him in Cleveland, Ohio, so that'll be cool. And in December I'll be seeing him in Palm Beach, Florida. Perfect timing to skip out on some of Montreal's horrid winters! ;) Then he's coming back for about 2 weeks for Christmas and New Year's (yay!), and then I'll be visiting him again at the end of February in Calgary, Alberta.
His contract is set to finish in March but may be extended to April, then he'll be back home.

These are all places I've never been to, so it's very exciting indeed!

As for MY work, I'll just be subbing this year, so that I can pretty much make my own hours and not have to worry about taking time off for travelling.

On the subject of travelling, I just booked a trip to New York City with one of my best friends; we're going to a concert of our favourite Jpop group we've been listening to since we were teenagers, so that's going to be too amazing for words. Plus, it's NEW YORK. (Omg. As I'm writing this, a piano version of "New York, New York" is playing on the episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm I'm watching, I KID YOU NOT! Ha!). Anyway, yeah--we love New York. I have a frickin' tattoo of the skyline of NYC on me, I'm THAT obsessed. I think about New York all the time but I haven't been since 2011 so to say I've been going through some New York withdrawl is putting it pretty mildly!

Speaking of that same wonderful, amazing friend, she was totally there for me at the end of July (right after I wrote that last entry, actually, according to the date) when I had to go to the ER after finding a random huge bruise on my arm that suddenly appeared after a week of feeling unwell. Cold symptoms, mouth sores...it was too scary. She kept me laughing in the ER when I got blood tests done and I really don't know what I'd do without her. Anyway all is well; just a summer cold, random bruise, and mouth sores; bad coincidence they all happen to be AML symptoms. But all was well. I had another blood test 2 weeks later (my regular scheduled one) and the results were fine, so all's good; let's hope it stays that way! Next blood test is in November. I'll have done quite a bit of travelling by then! How exciting. I love to travel. I hope to return to Japan soon. <3 But for now, I'm so grateful I'm able to go to all these places in Canada & the US and see my awesome husband!

Let's get high

Every little thing my body does induces panic. I haven't gotten used to living like this yet. Apparently you get used to it eventually. Either that or your cancer comes back. It's one or the other, right? :P

I'm depressed. My husband left for a 8-month contract abroad. I had 3.5 hours of sleep and I've felt like a zombie all the day. I went out and the heat made me feel queasy. I have AC (SO grateful for that!), but going out makes me feel UGH. Plus, I was watching a show I really like that is generally light-hearted, except one of the characters on the show has cancer, and on the episode I watched tonight she was told her chemo stopped working so that made me feel blaaaaaaaaahhhhh.

Also, seeing a photo of a chemo machine made me think of mine and I remember the BEEP BEEP BEEP, I can never ever forget the BEEP BEEP BEEP that it made; it's forever STUCK IN MY BRAIN.

I feel like getting high. I took Gravol, but I don't think it's giving me enough of a 'kick', maybe I should toss some Zopiclone in with that. I need to be buzzed, get away from my brain for awhile. Heh, popping pills is the 'fashionable' way to get high these days, isn't it?

TL;DR: fuck cancer.

*_*

I don't think people understand, even though I've been in remission for awhile, I still get tired. All the time. Very easily. My body just isn't the same anymore!

Someone else with leukemia

When I was diagnosed, everyone came to me and said I could come to them if I ever needed anything. Well, now I need something. I need you to share this information and spread the word of Mai Duong. 

Who is Mai Duong? She's a year older than me, and she also has acute leukemia, diagnosed at the same time as mine. Like me, also went into full remission. She just relapsed. She needs a stem cell transplant NOW. But seeing as she's Vietnamese, finding one is close to impossible as less than 1% of all donors are Vietnamese, and Vietnam (as in the country itself) doesn't even have a registry. But she needs stem cells! Please pass this info on and make sure all the Vietnamese get their swabs sent into to HEMA-Quebec (or wherever) so she can get a transplant. 

In English: 

In French: 

Here's the link to the Save Mai Duong Facebook page: 

http://www.facebook.com/savemaiduong

If you want to help me out in any way, you'll pass on that info for me. PLEASE. Please & thank-you. <3 <3 <3 

Performance anxiety

I have so many thoughts that go through my head at night when I'm not asleep, when I can't sleep. But when I come here to write I find I am unable to express many of them, if not most.

"Let it go, let it go!"

I'm getting so much better at handling colds & the flu and that kind of stuff. I have a pretty bad cold right now and thought I had a fever (but I don't), and anyway overall I'm not too worried about it. I've been through enough colds, etc. by this point that I know not to freak out. Easier said than done, of course, but this time it's doable. :) Also, even though I'm sick and feel icky, I have a lot of energy, sooo...that's very good! I can tell it's gonna be a little tough, going all the way til August without having the reassurance of a blood test, but I can do it!

My subject line is due to the fact I have that song (Let It Go) in my head, but also because I thought it was also pretty fitting for the entry. :) I just watched Frozen tonight for the 4th time in about six or seven weeks, haha. But it was my husband's first time seeing it. I was glad he finally watched it as I love that movie soooo much!

The Fault in our SHUT THE FUCK UP

Stupid cancer movies, blah blah blah! I guess I wouldn't mind the idea of "cancer movies" so much if they weren't ROMANCE. I mean, really. Ohhh, but cancer is just so ~**~tragic & romantic~**~, right? Puhh-lease.

lollll I guess all my cancer rants just go here now.

Not too much going on in life right now except work. Lots of work. I'm sooo eager for summer vacation. And I'm happy to have nothing to report, as no news is good news & all that!

Bloods are good, time goes by

Writing here stresses me out, yet I *want* to keep updating, hence the sporadic updates. My blood counts are good; I just had a blood test on Monday and my oncologist has decided I'm healthy enough to spread my tests further apart. Instead of seeing him every 4-6 weeks now, I'm not seeing him until August 11th! So I'm on my own for the summer. Good news for sure, but very scary at the same time. It's going to be tough adjusting to the new schedule. While I couldn't be happier than I get to spend less time in the that icky place filled with bad memories, on the other hand, I don't get the constant reassurance that things are going well. Which is something I have to learn how to deal with. And it's really hard. On some level, it feels like the longer it's been since the cancer, the worse I feel when I hear about it or think about it. Like, it's harder to hear about cancer-related anything the more times goes by. Does that make any sense? I guess nothing really makes sense with these kinds of things.

My laptop is falling apart, so I'm getting nervous writing in here, in fear that it might crash while I'm in the midst of typing up a post!

Why would you even?

Whether it be on Yahoo!, Facebook, Tumblr, or any kind of website at all, social media-related or otherwise:  fuck anyone who posts stories like "this terminally ill person got to say goodbye to their dog/have their graduation/someone sing to them before they died" NO ONE ANYWHERE NEEDS TO SEE THAT SHIT. I'd never ask to censor news, BUT THAT ISN'T NEWS. IT DOESN'T SERVE ANY PURPOSE WHATSOEVER. I'm on edge enough as it is, anyone who posts/shares these stories/pictures deserves to be set on fire. I'd spit on you if I could. Fuck off & die.

Oof

Hearing bad news about other people's cancer doesn't exactly give me the best motivation and/or hope. :/ I hate hearing bad cancer news, I wish I could reverse it for everyone and make everybody OK and healthy.

That said, I had a good day today! I haven't been feeling well at all this past week and a bit (first a bad cold, then IUD problems) but today I felt fine and my husband and I had a lovely afternoon and evening. I ended up drifting off super early (around 9:30) after drinking a bit of booze, wellll the bad side to that is that I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't fall back asleep. I woke up in the middle of the night...with cramps! ArGH, stupid IUD! Not sure if the alcohol played a part in that, triggering it or whatever, but I'm sure that would have happened anyway. ANYWAYS. I'm wide-awake now and it's 4:16 AM, blah...ah well, at least I've had a good day.

And I don't usually use this blog to talk about TV shows, but omg The Walking Dead is SO good!

Spring time

I'm so excited that it's spring. The sensations of spring are just so...well, SENSATIONAL to me seeing as I missed out of spring completely last year, so I haven't experienced spring in 2 years. And it's really slow in coming this year, too! It keeps getting cold over and over again, but now it finally seems like spring is here to stay. At first I was so super excited and I'd keep getting disappointed every time it got cold or snowed again, even though I'm used to that happening every spring--this IS Montreal, after all!--of course, this spring means something different to me. But this past week the nice weather has been making me feel anxious and I think I've figured out why. I'm worried about the cancer coming back (as always), and I don't want this wonderful weather to be taken away from me. I'm so excited to finally experience it, and I can't wait for summer so I can finally experience THAT instead of spending half of it in the hospital and half of it being neutropenic--and that makes me more anxious about getting sick again, like...no no, don't let it come back and take all this awesomeness away from me, ya know?

Stupid random memories!

Arrrgh! Sometimes I just have random memories of the hospital and it's just, like, the WORST. Like, just now I had a random memory of being pushed around in a stretcher...not sure what triggered that, it just seemingly popped into my head out of nowhere, and if anything DID trigger it, I've already forgotten what it was. Doesn't help that I'm sort of buzzing on zopiclone right now. Sort of being the key words. I'm not feeling that much of a 'kick' of it at the moment which worries me quite a bit as I'm not that tired and I REALLY need to get some sleep seeing as I work tomorrow and it's already 1:24 AM, ugh....oh well, guess I'll go to bed and hope to doze off, zopiclone can be tricky; sometimes I don't feel sleepy but then my head hits the pillow and next thing I know I'm in weird-wacky dreamland.

Anniversary time! ^_^

Two days ago marked my 1-year-anniversary of being in remission. ^_^ Unfortunately, that anniversary was marked with a bad cold and getting my period, which is really weird, seeing as I only get my period every 3 months now or so thanks to the IUD. I still have the cold but it seems to be going away now, and it's a bit weird seeing as I've gotten sick a few times in the past couple of months. So between that AND the fact that I got a cold and my rather rare period at the same time? Well, let's just say that if I hadn't had a blood test with excellent results just last week, I'd be freaking out right about now! I'm still a bit on the worried side, of course, but everything should be fine.

Btw, if anyone's reading this and is all "ewww gross period talk", well then you can fuck right off, seeing as this is a blog about my health, and if you can't make the obvious connection between fucked-up menstrual cycles and leukemia--while being judgmental about it at the same time, to boot--you're kind of an idiot. 

Anyway. Speaking of last week, I went on a little trip to Toronto, which was so much fun! I went with my husband who had to go for a conference so I was alone a lot of the time, but it was still fun and just so great to get out of town. Toronto's a great city. Every time I go I never get to spend enough time there and never get to see everything I want to see!

Alive part II

TBH I don't really remember where I left off last night, but I don't really care. All I know is that today I feel even weirder. On this date last year, Feburary 26th, I was already in the hospital. All day today all I could think about was what I had been doing in the hospital at that time and what part of the hospital I was in. Let's see, it's 9 pm at this very moment, so I must have been in Oncology by then. Oh yeah! I remember where I left off last night...I was writing about how I was put in isolation. Yeah, OK. So it was like a fucking movie, right? Behind sealed glass doors and no one could go in, not even the nurses or my own husband, without a mask, gloves, and full-gown. At some point they tell me and Mike my blood test results and tell us that my red & white blood cell counts are nearly at zero, and I didn't know WTF that meant but I knew it wasn't good! My parents came in by that point (Mike called them as this was turning into some fucked-up shit right here) and a TEAM of fucking doctors came in, looking SUPER serious. I've never in my life had a doctor look at me with such seriousness before. Doctors only ever look bored. But omg, the looks on their faces, they meant business. And that's when I started to wonder, holy shit, maybe something might really be wrong? They told me they weren't sure but they needed to do a biopsy, and needed to find a bed up in hematology and they had to keep me there in the meantime. I don't remember much time passing until they came back to say that a bed had opened up. I remember not being that scared, just kinda like, oh okay, they'll do a biopsy, and find out whatever, it won't be anything serious, just that I'm severely anemic or whatever, and they'll give me some meds and maybe a blood transfusion and I'll go home in a couple of days. In fact, while they were wheeling me around the hospital on the stretcher, in my head I kept going "Starlight Express! Starlight Express! Starlight Express! Starlight Express!" which is a joke from Family Guy. I wasn't so edgy that I wasn't NOT like, making jokes in my own head, you know? I was also fucking out of it but whatever.

Anyway then they bring me upstairs and to my destination and I notice the sign says "Hematology/Oncology" and I thought to myself, ".....Oncology, huh. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. This can't be good." But, just like, totally calmly like that. I didn't really think much of it. The only thing really on my mind was that if I had to give people directions to come visit me in the hospital, I'd have to tell them to come to Oncology, and saying Oncology would be kind of weird.

I remember my lovely nurse from that night (I ended up having her many times over the course of my multiple stays over the following 5 months) and being sleepy and them telling me I'd have a biopsy the next morning and me not thinking much of it, and falling asleep relatively easy, IIRC.

So, let's see...it's now 9:15 pm. I'm pretty sure I was already in Oncology by then!

The next morning I had my biopsy and it wasn't too painful but it felt weird as fuck and they shot me so full of dilaudid I pretty much slept the entire day, and I woke up in the evening with quite an appetite and had supper and was surprised when as I was finishing up the med team let themselves in, as they mentioned they might not have the biopsy results right away. But it was about 5:30 pm and they had the results, and without any hesitation the doctor said, "It's not what we thought it was, it's acute myeloid leukemia", and I was so fucking shocked, because I was expecting him to end that sentence with anemia, not leukemia. It never occured to me in a million years that I would have leukemia. Children get leukemia. Old people get leukemia. Not people who just turned 32! I was so stunned. I don't remember much of anything he said after that as it all turned into Charlie Brown teacher voice, but I DO remember him saying that I'd be assigned a psychiatrist (which I remember thinking made perfect sense) and that my chemo treatment would start that Friday (it was a Wednesday evening when this happened). I was so shocked! And scared, of course. I've known a few people in my life who had leukemia and they all died fairly quickly. I don't remember saying anything to him or his team the entire time they spoke to me! All I remember doing is nodding. My mom and aunt were in the room with me, and I'm pretty sure they must have said something, but I don't really remember what! I *may* have said "OK."  I was drinking milk while the doctor told me the news, and he and his team left the room and I just sat there with the straw in my mouth in shock, and I remember the whole time I had the Angry Birds theme in my head! So of course, now I have it in my head right now as I type this. It's weird, whenever I hear the Angry Birds theme, I think of the moment I was told I had leukemia. Ouch!

Well, I don't remember much after that. A lot is a big blank after that for most of the rest of the month. Of course I remember the odd thing here and there, for sure. But not very much. Especially not the first few days, and especially not that night. I know Mike wasn't there as he had gone home to shower (we live about a 15-minute walk from the hospital) and I didn't want to be the one to tell him! I told my mom to tell him. That might sound weird to other people, but I was in total shock. The thing is, I don't remember seeing him when he rushed back to the hospital! You'd think I'd remember such a pivotal moment, but I don't. Seriously that night and most of the days and nights right after it are a total blank. One thing I DO remember from that night was Mike and I sitting on my bed texting everyone, and I laughed and said, "Omg, this is such 2013. You find out you have cancer, and all we can do is text!" I remember just finding it hilarious in admist all this crazy fucked-up shit there was this pause of total silence except for the familiar clicking sound from two people sitting and texting like mad.

Also, on a less happier note, I remember falling asleep that night and having horrible nightmares, the type where you think you're still awake because you're dreaming that you're in your bed, you know what I mean? I dreamt I looked behind my hospital bed and I found a dismembered hand there. That was the first thing I dreamt. Then I dreamt I looked down at my arm where the IV was and I was having an allergic reaction to it, my arm was puffing up and looked horrible! I grabbed wildly for the nurse bell to press the button and then woke up and realized my arm was fine. You'd think I'd remember my first morning waking up and being like "ohhh that's right, I HAVE FUCKING CANCER", but I don't. There's so many random memories I have from the month that followed though.

You know what's weird? I don't know why my brain does this, but often I remember that moment, when the doctor and his team came in to tell me the bad news, as a mirror-image of the way the room really was. All my other memories of that room are (relatively) fine, the room looking as it should. But that one memory? My brain chooses to remember it as a mirror-image. That has never happened to me before (that I can recall). For all my faults and weaknesses, one thing about me that's very strong is my memory. My long-term memory honestly borders on photographic. I understand that traumatic experiences can result in altered memories, but I wonder for what reason my brain decided to go with a mirror-image of the event.

I can't get the Angry Birds theme out of my head.

Alive

It was my birthday on Sunday and all I could think was "I'm still alive."

(Oooh! Dramatic paragraph spacing!)

On my birthday last year I was so sick I couldn't move from the couch. I didn't know why I was so sick yet; all I knew was that it was getting worse and that it was the worst flu and set of mouth sores I'd ever had. I was confused that it wasn't going away and my mouth felt like it had a migraine breeding millions of baby migraines within it, and I couldn't understand why nothing I did would help.

That was the 23rd. Today is the 25th. On this very day exactly one year ago, I couldn't take the pain anymore and no longer had any energy to sit up and finally went to bed. For 24 hours. I remember every little detail so clearly; feeling sicker than I ever felt before:

Why won't this pain go away?

Fever dreams. I remember them in such detail it's like I dreamt them last night.

The TV on in my room showing a reality show given the awful title Road Side Warriors. Hyperbole, hyperbole! I can't stop thinking of that word, and that stupid title.

The snow plow going back & forth on my street, not just ringing its alarm non-stop but smashing something into the ground repeatedly, why can't you get into an accident and shut up for good?!

The sweat. SO MUCH SWEAT. Drowning in sweat. How is it possible for this fever NOT to have been sweat out yet?!

Getting up and licking my lips only to find a film has formed inside my mouth and is falling out in pieces.

Ads on TV that show an old man in a hospital, wondering if I should go to a hospital.

Lying on one side of my face helps numb the awful awful awful awful awful mouthsore/gum/tooth pain, along with a heating pad which I put in the freezer. But the freezer smells, the fridge smells. EVERYTHING SMELLS. All the food smells SO STRONGLY. Mike had made maple syrup sweet potatoes and quiche, trying to give me soft foods. But I smell every little ingredient. None of it makes sense. 

Walking is too difficult. I don't have the energy. I feel like I can't even sit up. No energy at all.

Vivid, story-heavy dreams where almost everything was wrong, very wrong.

Ah, I remember it all so clearly!

The next morning, I was horrified to find out, upon wakening, that I didn't feel any better still. I managed to pull myself out of bed and forced myself to shower, and that's when I had trouble breathing. Again. I had had a few bouts of breathing problems over the past while and they were getting more and more frequent and more intense.

I tried to ignore it and reached for a bar of soap and saw my fingernails, and they were blue. And that's when I was like, DONE. That's it, something is wrong as fuck, I'm going to the hospital. I jumped out of the shower and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and saw my lips looked like they were turning grey! I was getting scared at this point.

I collapsed on the sofa to catch my breath and told Mike to call a taxi to the hospital. I remember waiting for the elevator to take us downstairs was agony, but once I stepped outside into the winter air it felt so refreshing, and I wondered for a bit if I wasn't just having a bad anxiety attack (with blue nails/lips? Yeah RIGHT!) and that maybe I'd be OK.

I remember telling Mike that when we got to the ER to make sure to tell triage that I was having breathing problems so they'd see me right away. He barely had to; when we got there, walking from the cab through the ER doors and over to the triage window was enough for me, and I as I tried to sit on the waiting room chairs, I fell on the floor, prompting everyone around us to spring up and tell us to go on ahead of them.
Except this one old lady, who I'll never forget as long as I live. She kept saying "What about me? I need to go in, too. What about meeeee?"
I was on the floor, struggling to breathe, which everyone else noticed. And she was bitching away like a bitchy bitch. While I sat there on the ER floor wondering what the fuck was going on with my body, I remember thinking, "Shut up. Shut the fuck up. I'm having trouble breathing and CAN'T EVEN STAND ON MY OWN YET YOU'RE WELL ENOUGH TO WHINE, SO SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!" Even though I felt like my lungs had completely deflated, I remember being so angry! Haha.

Anyway, they got me into the ER right away and took my vitals and then had me wait on a stretcher for about a half hour, during which I got bored (and annoyed with the person next to me who wouldn't stop complaining about everything) so I put on my mp3-player and they came by at some point to do an EKG, chest X-ray, and take my bloods. They told me they wanted to check for a blood clot. I remember saying to Mike how much a blood clot would suck, but that it wouldn't be the worst thing ever. I distinctly remember saying WELL, BETTER A BLOOD CLOT THAN SOMETHING LIKE CANCER, LOL. Holy fuck. In retrospect, that comment.....grrr.
This is why people who say things like "OMG you shouldn't say things like that!" in response to comments like "imagine we got into a car accident?" or "I hope he dies in a fire" or whatever need to be told HOW FUCKING STUPID THEY SOUND. Saying things doesn't change the outcome of anything, OBVIOUSLY.


Um, so anyway. The blood folks come RUSHING back about 45 minutes later seeming a little nervous, saying something must have gone wrong with the tests because the results they read "couldn't possibly be right". I'm like whatevs! Take all the blood you want, folks. So, stab, draw, repeat. I'm just happy to be lying down and to have people taking care of me...and good music to block out the freaks!

45 minutes they come back again, except this time they're a)wearing masks,  b) they stick a mask on me, and c) they're freaking. the fuck. out.  They have to get me into isolation IMMEDIATELY. I'm like uhhhh...what? Wait, what's going? So they wheel me into this tiny little room with sealed glass doors and even Mike's not allowed inside without a mask and GOWN. No one is. By this point, I'm actually starting to get a little bit scared. Do I have some kind of fucked-up virus? I mean, really. The only place I've ever seen this type of isolation shit is in the movies, where people get quarantined because they picked up some kind of mutant virus or whatever.

...annnnd I think that's all I'll write for today. Mike just got home from work, and it'll be hard to concentrate on this with him here. (Tiny apartment, you see.) But at least I got all this out! It was quite therapeutic. It's been a weird day. At least I was working today to help keep my mind off things, but it was barely enough (not to mention that it was a VERY uneventful day at work, too). I couldn't stop thinking about what was happening a year ago today. I didn't think just a date would affect me so much but I was wrong. It hit me a lot more when I got home.

As I wrote on Facebook, I have so much going on in my mind right now (but writing out this super long blog entry really helped). I can't explain how I feel though. To copy & paste from my Facebook: There's no words for how I feel tonight. It's a weird mix of spooky, melancholy, victorious, grateful, anxious, lucky, surprised, confused, lonely, relieved, sad, and blessed. To summarize: it's fucking weird, dude.

Our government sucks, btw

I have my first flu since I've been in remission and it's terrifying! At least, it better be a flu and not anything more serious...omg. And I'm angry, SO ANGRY, because our stupid government is cutting funding to cancer care at hospitals and no one gives a shit. Yet OMG raise the tuition fees just a little and some folks will raise all hell...disagree with said being hell raised and guess what? You're considered a police-loving asshole. (What? I HATE the police.) Yeah, it makes even less sense than it sounds, trust me. I hate the government in this province so much (Quebec, for those who read this blog and don't know) and the mentality of certain people. Yeah, "I'm mad bro." And I think I have every reason to be. To anyone & everyone who gave me a hard time during the "maple spring" (they even appropriated the name of a REAL and uncomparable issue) for DARING to disagree with you, while you sit back and do nothing for serious issues like this because it's not en vogue to protest against cutting cancer care funding, because there's no fashionable-coloured square to wear for that: fuck you. You have a terrible, shitty attitude, and I bet that somewhere deep down, you know that. At least, I hope you do. I highly doubt any of those types are actually reading this blog, but I had to get that off my chest.

Aches & fatigue

I haven't been feeling well this week (physically), it felt like I was sort of getting a cold but not really; mostly I've just been really, really fatigued, so needless to say I'm quite worried. I feel fine otherwise except for joint pain (which went away) and now dizziness. Except I don't recall feeling dizziness with leukemia before, and quick googling leads me to info that joint pain, dizziness, and extreme fatigue are all major side effects of the Mirena IUD. So, maybe it's just that? (Hopefully). I mean, I DID just get a blood test a little over 2 weeks ago. That's not THAT long ago, right? And I feel pretty OK. I don't feel sick or anything, just really sleepy all the time. I don't think that's how I felt when I actually had leukemia. And I haven't had any night sweats or anything like that. No flu or even a cold, despite the fact all my friends seem to be getting sick and all the kids at school are sick, too. My white blood cells SEEM to be in pretty good shape. I dunno. I'm worried. I hate this anxiety!

Speaking of anxiety, I went to see my old psychiatrist today. I say 'old' as he was the one I had before I got sick. I hadn't seen him sicne I was diagnosed so I had a lot to tell him about, naturally. He's setting me up with a therapist, FINALLY. (It seems like I'm not seeing the therapist the hospital assigned me anymore because he pretty much only sees in-patients.)

I'm craving olives & mayo right now. My mom makes these amazing chopped egg sandwiches and she puts olives and mayo in them and that's what I'm craving. YUM.

More of the positive stuff!

The silverlining (?) to having nightmares all the time is that I always wake up so relieved and HAPPY to be ALIVE!

On a more cheerful note (well, that last bit was supposed to be cheerful, even if it didn't sound like it...), I'm a lot less anxious these days, as I mentioned a couple of posts ago. So, that's good! Hopefully this bout of lessened anxiety will continue. I'll be seeing my old psych soon, so we'll see how that goes!

One thing that helps a lot at keeping my mind occupied (besides work, of course!) is video games. I'm soooo grateful my awesome AWESOME friends got me a 3DS (did I write about that here yet? I can't remember), it's like the best gift in the whole wide world and I love it and can't stop playing it. It REALLY helps keep my mind off things I normally worry about in ways that movies or TV shows or sometimes even just hanging out with friends can't, seeing as the games I've been playing take so much brainpower in trying to figure out. :) It's easy for my mind to wander into scary, worried territory when I'm watching a movie or reading a book, but while playing a game, it's a lot less likely to happen, because it uses so much more brainpower and thinking skills, etc. Especially the game I've been obsesssing over lately (Zelda: A Link Between Worlds). <3

Bittersweet kind of day

And all is well. I'm doing so good apparently that my oncologist decided my blood tests will now be every 2 months rather than every month. Wow! I'm happy but feeling a little bit ehhh as I ran into a former hospital room mate of mine today. He was awfully skinny. I asked him if he had gotten his BMT yet (bone marrow transplant) as when we were hospital roomies (July) he was set up for one in September. It turns out he hadn't gotten it after all as he had gotten a lung infection of some kind and needs an operation for it before they can go ahead with the BMT. Fuck. Leukemia and lung infections...fuck, man. I hope he's OK. I can't stop thinking about how skinny he was and that it's already almost February and his BMT was set for SEPTEMBER (six months ago!) and he didn't get it yet. He had just become a father when he was getting chemo with me and would tell me about his new baby, who's still with his wife in Africa (I forget where). Apparently they're coming over to Montreal soon. Well, I hope everything turns out OK for him, and that's certainly an understatement! OK, so it's a bittersweet kind of day.

It's getting better!

OK, I'm starting to get used to having monthly blood tests. At least I'm not as anxious as I was for the last one. It helps that I feel great these days! The past few weeks I've felt better than I've felt all year, both physically and mentally. I don't feel tired or run down or like I'm coming down with anything; I just feel healthy and pretty good overall, and not out of breath or anything like that. Plus, I think my body (and mind!) have finally gotten used to working. I've been working on call but almost full-time. It's fantastic! So not only does it help keep me occupied, but it seems to have helped me get used to the stress that is work. Good stuff all around.
That said, of course I'm not thrilled about my blood test tomorrow. I just want to get it over with. I'm still a bit nervous. I also hope I don't get called into room 3, because, well, I know this sounds silly, but I had a dream where I was hiding from my oncologist and a patient saw me and told me I wouldn't have to worry as long as I didn't get called into room 3. You see, at the hospital in the ODC where you get the blood tests done, you wait and then they call you into a room where you get your results. The rooms are numbered 1-18, so when your name gets called over the speaker they tell you which room to go into. Usually I get called into room 7. I think I even mentioned that in my dream.

For anyone reading this who thinks it's ridiculous to worry about that, well, I've had plenty of dreams that have actually happened, in extreme detail (I'm not talking vague crap here). I think everyone has. I can't stand it when people think dreams are meaningless because I'm living proof that's not true (as are many other folks). Just because YOU'RE boring and YOUR subconcious sucks and doesn't ever dream up things that happen in real life afterward doesn't mean that YOU have any clue what you're talking about when it comes to dreaming.

Zope nopes

I never want to go to sleep when zopiclone kicks in. It's the one point in the day my heart rate drops to something normal. It's the one point in the day I feel calm. It feels like a waste to ruin the tiny bit of zen I get by going to bed for a sleepness night of terrifying nightmares. Ya knowwww? :( Nighmares past 2 nights in a row, I don't feel very confident about tonight...

Starting to approach a certain anniversary...

I haven't posted here in a month! And now it's the new year. (Happy New Year to anyone who might be reading this!) What can I say? I spend a lot of my time trying to forget about leukemia, and writing here doesn't exactly accomplish that, so that's probably the main reason I've been avoiding coming here. That said, I do indeed enjoy keeping a blog and don't plan to give that up. And of course, there are certainly times when writing is actually therapeutic, so there ya go.

With the new year here, it's that much closer to the time of year I was diagnosed. This time last year I was already getting frequently sick and feeling tired and short of breath without understanding why. The point at which I got super sick and didn't get better, or the point of no return, or...well, I don't know what to call it, but THAT...that was around February 17th, depending on what point of getting sick you want to start at. I ended up in the hospital on Feburary 26th, admitted that night, had my biopsy the next morning on the 27th, and was diagnosed later that evening. Shit. I can't believe it'll be almost a year since all of that. If I make it one more year without a relapse, then my chances for survival go up. :) If I make it one more year without relapse after that, then my chances for survival go up a LOT. So I just gotta make it to that point, and I'll be as close to "out of the woods" as I'll ever be able to be, I guess. There's obviously and unfortunately never a real "out of the woods" with cancer, especially with the agressive kinds. But if it's the best I can hope for, I'll take it!

Anyway, I hope everyone had a good New Year's and holidays in general. I know I did. :) I went overnight with friends to Quebec City, which was amazing--my first out of town overnighter since being out of the hospital (the only out of town experience I've had since then was to Mount-Tremblant but just for the day), and it really was fun; definitely one of those times when cancer was pushed to the back of my mind for once. :) My Christmas was great, and the holidays in general were filled with good times and partying, I had 2 weeks off from school...the contract I had been working is finished but I'm returning to work at that same school for various other subbing jobs this month, so that's absolutely fantastic on so many levels!