Well the old has passed and the new has begun. Don’t really feel any different, except that I finally got rid of this blimey cold I’ve had for 2 ½ weeks. What a pain that thing was, in fact it has felt worse than any of my Leukemia has so far (though somehow that sounds really bad to say).
Really, it’s kind of weird how you start relating things with Leukemia. Like with this cold, sore throat, swollen glands, night sweats, weird voice and the most awful kennel cough (for those with a dog from the humane society, you’ll know what I’m talking about there), which took me an unusual amount of time to get out of my system. All of the sudden I started wondering if it was due to my lower white blood cell count (now down to 3.3) that I wasn’t getting any better, or maybe even worse, I had Lymphoma on top of my Leukemia. Well you get it, I finally scared myself into the doctor’s office over a cold, which he confirmed it was. He didn’t really want to prescribe any antibiotics (which I think was definitely a great call), but since I had Leukemia he didn’t want to send me home empty handed either. So the good man wrote me a prescription for some cough stuff with…… Codeine!! Score 1 for the Leukemia. So I spent the next couple of days in a nice lull (only in the evenings & not on the road) and now I feel a lot better (& still have half a bottle left!!).
Actually that was score 2 for the Leukemia since I got myself out of a meeting at work the other day, jokingly saying that I felt a sudden bout of Leukemia welling up. What is a boss to say…….. Go home is what he said! Can you blame me, it was a Friday afternoon at 4:00 PM, it would’ve lasted at least an hour and in all honesty really didn’t involve my department (what great work ethic I have!!). I guess if the Gleevec doesn’t take I’ll reread this post and wonder about the Karma phenomenon for a while.
Overall 2007 has been a good year for our family, besides the obvious not so great CML diagnosis and the fact that we’re not having a boy ............;-) . The goods definitely overshadow those items. As a family we’re extremely happy, and CML has only made our bond stronger (though our daughter does yell at us when the occasional tear wells up, maybe she missed this stronger bond bit). There is a healthy baby on the way and it’s another girl. Isanne will be her name by the way, and yes I’m ecstatic, I’m probably more of a “girls’ dad” anyway (must be all of that Euro Metrosexualism in me).
Really, it’s kind of weird how you start relating things with Leukemia. Like with this cold, sore throat, swollen glands, night sweats, weird voice and the most awful kennel cough (for those with a dog from the humane society, you’ll know what I’m talking about there), which took me an unusual amount of time to get out of my system. All of the sudden I started wondering if it was due to my lower white blood cell count (now down to 3.3) that I wasn’t getting any better, or maybe even worse, I had Lymphoma on top of my Leukemia. Well you get it, I finally scared myself into the doctor’s office over a cold, which he confirmed it was. He didn’t really want to prescribe any antibiotics (which I think was definitely a great call), but since I had Leukemia he didn’t want to send me home empty handed either. So the good man wrote me a prescription for some cough stuff with…… Codeine!! Score 1 for the Leukemia. So I spent the next couple of days in a nice lull (only in the evenings & not on the road) and now I feel a lot better (& still have half a bottle left!!).
Actually that was score 2 for the Leukemia since I got myself out of a meeting at work the other day, jokingly saying that I felt a sudden bout of Leukemia welling up. What is a boss to say…….. Go home is what he said! Can you blame me, it was a Friday afternoon at 4:00 PM, it would’ve lasted at least an hour and in all honesty really didn’t involve my department (what great work ethic I have!!). I guess if the Gleevec doesn’t take I’ll reread this post and wonder about the Karma phenomenon for a while.
Overall 2007 has been a good year for our family, besides the obvious not so great CML diagnosis and the fact that we’re not having a boy ............;-) . The goods definitely overshadow those items. As a family we’re extremely happy, and CML has only made our bond stronger (though our daughter does yell at us when the occasional tear wells up, maybe she missed this stronger bond bit). There is a healthy baby on the way and it’s another girl. Isanne will be her name by the way, and yes I’m ecstatic, I’m probably more of a “girls’ dad” anyway (must be all of that Euro Metrosexualism in me).
We have wonderful friends and family and a great supportive Church family that has really come through for us this past month. We were really overwhelmed by the outpouring of support. In fact at a certain point there was prayer going on in Reformed, Christian Reformed, Catholic and a Romanian Orthodox Churches (we still haven’t told our friend who’s a priest in the Episcopalian Church) AND in different languages as well: Dutch, English, Spanish & Romanian. You’d figure someone up there should have gotten the message and put me on the “get well soon” list.
On top of that we’ve put our house on the market early December (a week after the diagnosis), since we are still planning on moving back to the Netherlands. In fact I think the CML has only made our resolve to move stronger since we feel it is very important to have family members closer by than we currently do. However, we will probably wait a little longer in doing so until we know better where we are at with the CML. The point is though that our house was sold within a week, had 2 offers and 2 more interested and it looks like we’ll need to be out by January 20. Unbelievable really for listing in the slowest month of the year in a super down market, but we’re happy to take the money and run since we feel housing prices are not going to be going up anytime soon and a rental gives us the flexibility of moving whenever we want. So if any of you aren’t doing anything around the 20th and you have an able body (not too concerned about the willing part), feel free to come and lend us a hand.
We could really use your help……..you know………., my wife is pregnant and I have Leukemia…………
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