Reflection on Febuary and March

I go through the paperwork that once was my life in a day by day breakdown of the medications, the food I ate, and keeping track on my in-take and out-take. I was diagnosed and had my first bone marrow biopsy the following day. I remember how much it hurt to have the biopsy. It was some of the worst pain that I had ever gone through. Little did I know that I would have some many done that I can get up and walk around normal after I have one now. It is amazing how the body handles pain once you know what you are getting yourself into. When you do something for the first time you have conquered your fear. You will never have that unknown again but then you know that you are stronger than you were before. So many people say that I am their inspiration. My thoughts now are to better this world and have people understand that life is so short and we take some many things for granted. There is so much else that I want to teach but it is if people are welling to listen and want to learn from my experience. I hope this blog will help others and myself. At the beginning of treatment I was placed onto 11 new medications, most of which were chemotherapy drugs to put me into remission. I had to make the choice on weather or not this was what I wanted to do. I could have gotten up and left the hospital and given myself a month or two to live. If there is one word that I have learned is determination. It is all a mind game, setting goals and believing in yourself. I want to live and have a life for the 50 years. People say that I am a survior but really I feel like I am warrior and I have to go to war with myself. I don't feel like a survior because I have so much more to go through. Survior feels like it is an end result to something. The insides of me are fighting each other making me weak even to this day. On 2.19.11 I had a PICC line places in my arm to recieve the medications in a strong vein. 2.20.11 the doctors had a CAT scan performed and everything came back normal. I don't remember this happening but it is documented that I had one. Almost every day that I was in the hospital, I had to recieve medication for a migraine. I was taking Imatrex and Oxycodone and it was barely working. I still don't know why I was getting the migraines but it was like clock work on when they would set in. I hated to have to ask for mediciation. I didn't realize at the time that I really needed to be in the best comfort as possible. They were always looking at the liver and kidneys making a little more fear in my life, but luckily nothing ever came of it. Only one week into it I was started on Flexerall for pain. The amount of pain that my whole body was going through doesn't compare to the side effects of the medications. Besides the chemo meds the pain meds have really blocked my memory of things that I have happened. Reading over the notes, there seem to be a lot of set backs that I don't remember. I had to get a lot of transfusions and my counts wouldn't go up and then they weren't able to preform the lumbar punctures and biopsy. On March 2nd it was documented that I weighed 116 pounds. That was down from the 127 that I started with. I was watching my life in front of me disappear. This cancer was trying to take me. I was fighting with all my heart and soul. It hurts my heart now to think about all the pain I went through. On March 4th around 1:20pm I was told that the chemo didn't work. Thank you Charlene for documenting it. I remember sitting on the bed and just losing it. I knew at that point it wasn't going to be a easy road. Good news is on March 7th we found out that Charlene was my match. Oh that felt good to have some good news. It is really hard to read over the notes from what my family took. It is pretty straight forward, no fluff which is how I like it. At this point I haven't even been the hospital for a month. But because I know how it turns out, I know that I get sent home on the 21st. Those next 10 days were about getting better, being in remission, and fighting for my life. Not eating because of the mouth sores were probably one of the worst experiences. They are like shutting down your mouth and vocal cords. Needless to say I lost more weight. By the end of the month I was down to 104 pounds. It was the most fragile state my body had ever been in. The next couple of weeks I spent in bed or in a chair watching tv. Next will come April and May. I hope that you will learn something from this journey from me. Please feel free to share your thoughts.