Tuesday, October 02, 2007

OMGWTF LEUKEMIA...
Current mood: blah
Category: Life


Well, I found out last month that I have leukemia, which kind of sucks, but I'm dealing with it. The chemo sucks, losing all my hair sucks, the susceptibility to all kinds of infections sucks, the pain killer are good but the pain sucks… A good thing that's coming out of this though is the fact that I'm becoming closer to a lot of people. My friends and family have really really really helped me out a lot and that doesn't suck. I'm not saying that it was worth getting leukemia for it, but I'm happy for it. Anyway, onto my leukemia story…

About 2 ½ months ago (late July early August of 07) I noticed that my right eye was a little narrower than my left eye. I asked my friends about it and they saw it too, but some of them just said that it was always like that. Anyway, I got all self conscious about it and all that good shit, whatever. Well, one day I woke up and my depth perception was a little off. I thought that I strained my eye reading or looking at the computer so I just blew it off, but the next day it was the same thing. A couple more days went by, and I could really tell it was starting to swell up and my eye started to go off center (like I had a lazy eye or something. So I decided it was time to go to the doctor.

I didn't (and still don't) have insurance, so the urgent care center that I went to wanted $100 which I didn't want to pay cuz I didn't think that it was that big of a problem. I talked to a few buddies, and they told me that I should go to the local VA hospital, which I ended up doing. I didn't realize that I could still get benefits while I was out of the army, but apparently I could cuz they got me signed up pretty quick. After a bunch of paper work and shit, they sent me up to the optometrist who diagnosed me with Optic Neuritis and told me to make an appointment with the Seattle VA hospital and get an MRI done. So I did.

When I went up to the Seattle VA I think I filled out a little more paper work, then they told me to go see the optometrist there, which I did. They told me the other hospital was wrong and that it wasn't Optic Neuritis which was a good thing cuz that shit can lead to MS which is something that I didn't want. They diagnosed me and told me that it was either my lachrymal gland (the gland that makes your tears) swelling and pressing against my eye, or that it might be a tumor of some sort. I was scared as shit when they told me that, but they said it probably wasn't going to be cancerous. So they prescribed me with some corticosteroids to make the swelling go down and scheduled me to come in every week to check up on me.

So I took the pills like they told me to and the swelling started going down which was cool, but with the corticosteroids, you have to wean yourself off of them over a period of time, which is was I was doing. Well as I started weaning myself off of them, the swelling above and behind my eye started getting bigger again. Eventually the optometrist (or maybe they were ophthalmologists) recommended that I see the orbital surgeon so he could make a call on whether or not I needed a biopsy so they could figure out exactly what was going on up there. So I saw him on Aug 20th and he told me that I would need the biopsy and that he could schedule me in for the next day. So that's what happened; I was supposed to go in, get my biopsy done then be able to go home.

Well, I went in for the biopsy and they drew blood before the surgery. They put me under (which was a weird experience cuz you're laying there, then BAM, you wake up) and when I woke up I was groggy and all that good shit. There were a bunch of doctors hanging out and talking to each other. Finally when I was less out of it they came over and told me that the surgery went fine and that when they checked my blood, they found out that I had leukemia. I was still a little out of it, so I guess it didn't register right away, but damn. After waiting forever in the post-surgery recovery room they wheeled my ass down to the oncology ward of the hospital and gave me my own room and that's where I stayed for a month while they did the chemo on me.

As far as the chemotherapy goes, it sucks. At first I don't think that the reality of the whole situation had set in on me, but after getting the chemotherapy I realize all too well what's going on. The side effects of the chemo are horrible to say the least because it doesn't only kill the bad cells in my body, it also killed a lot of good ones (the rapidly reproducing cells to be specific). But the worst thing is that it killed off my immune system completely, so any little infection that I could have gotten had the potential to kill me or something like that.

In either case, about 2 weeks into being in the hospital I guess I got pneumonia which sucked ass… I was so messed up from it and all the drugs that they were giving me to keep my ass alive. I don't remember most of that week, but I remember hallucinating and the horrible condition I was in. Just imagine seeing a heroin addict going through withdraw and that's how I felt for a whole week. I was throwing up, couldn't eat, shitting and pissing all over myself. It was pretty fucking horrible. I had people come in to visit me and I don't even remember and the same when people called. I think most of the time I had to tell them that I wasn't feeling good, so I couldn't talk on the phone.

Anyway, I got to get out of the hospital for two weeks when my immune system came back which is cool. I'm staying at my buddy Copas' house at the moment which was really cool of him. The shitty part is that I have to go back to the hospital and get more chemotherapy… They say that the second round usually isn't as bad as the first one, but I guess that's to be determined. I'm also not looking forward to the bone marrow aspiration that I have to get when I go back in there tomorrow (today is Oct 2, 2007). The bone marrow aspiration hurts like HELL. They take this huge needle, poke it into a bone (usually the breast plate bone), then withdraw bone marrow so they can do tests on it to see what the status of my leukemia is. They give me pain killers and local anesthetic, but it still hurts bad…
Anyway, I just wanted write all this shit down…

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

What the fuck over?!
Current mood: blah
Category: Writing and Poetry

So yeah, here I am, still wasting away in the not-so-stellar Seattle, WA and I still don't have a clue as to when I'm coming back to PA... I got doctors telling me I'm good to go one day, then they find something wrong and BAM, I've got 2-4 weeks to hang out a little longer while they try to decide the best way to deal with it. I mean, I know they're just trying to tie up all the lose ends before they send me out on my way, but I'm really tired of being in the dark about this. I feel so lethargic and disdained about the whole situation to be honest. Not so much about being held in WA (which is a fraction of the reason), but mostly about not knowing! I feel like I have no control of my life, and that's not a very good feeling at all...

Other than that, things aren't too bad. All the shit they got me taking as far as the pills and IVs is horrible. They make me feel like crap while they're keeping me alive, but it's better than the alternative. I have really good days where I feel great, but then I'll have the shitty days where I don't feel like doing anything but laying around and sleeping.

But ya, that's the update on me I guess... Some of the more trivial shit that's been going on lately isn't really worth mentioning, but fuck it, why not mention it... I've been on my computer way too much, which is a result of feeling like shit a lot of the time. I go out and do shit sometimes, but mostly I stay in. Hopefully that will change when I move back home. I've been playing my guitar a lot lately which I think I need a new one soon. I need to find a Guitar Center or used music shop and get something new. I was thinking about a Les Paul or some sort of Gibson, but who knows... Been making cheese-mo rap beats on the computer too lately. Hit me up and I might let you hear one or two of them, lol...

Anyway, that's the update on me so far. Anyone from PA, hopefully I'll be seeing ya soon, but who knows... Take it sleazy people and all that blah blah blah. Peace Out.