It’s Not Lymphoblastic!

Today, during a visit with my doctor to discuss Phase Two of my treatment, my doctor threw me (as well as my wife and daughter who were with me for the visit) for a serious loop. He started off immediately by explaining that after further analysis of all of my tests, I now have, and always have had, Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML) in Bilineal Blast Crisis instead of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL), which I was my original diagnosis. I am still stuck with the Philadelphia Chromosome abnormality. That has not gone any where.

Nothing changes though, as far as my treatment goes. I will continue to take the drugs that I have been taking for Phase One of my treatment (I still need to list those on my Treatment page), and beginning Wednesday, January 13, 2010, I will begin taking about four more additional chemotherapy drugs to bring my counts back down. After my counts are brought back down again I will have another bone marrow biopsy. Oh yeah, I must not forget the fun of another four lumbar pulls (AKA, spinal taps) during the upcoming phase. Fun, indeed. Better yet, it’s a Blast Crisis!

So, in the end, nothing really changes but the name. There are consequences for the impact on my disability claims, though. I have already completed the paperwork and identified my disease as ALL. I guess there will be some backtracking to do there.

It’s Lymphoblastic!

It’s hard for me to write under the best of conditions–I’m a pronounced procrastinator who always can rationalize away a reason to write. But now that I’m down with cancer, I have both the best opportunity to, as well as the best reason not to, write.

I have much to write about–anyone does, really. But in the short period of time since my diagnosis on November 30, 2009, with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) and the Philadelphia Chromosome abnormality, I have accumulated many things in my mind that I would like to record for my own self-interest. For example, I would like to log down the emergency room scene when I was told about my disease, including the moaning drunk outside my pulled curtain (as cliche as it may sound), to capture what I remember and felt about that experience. I would also like to describe what it’s like to be stuck in a hospital bed in a room where everyone who enters has to wear a mask. It becomes rather surreal when I had multiple visitors sitting around me trying to communicate through their eyes. And of course I will want to try to explain how the treatment and various medications are affecting me physically and mentally. Yes, lots to discuss as long as I am unable to convince myself not to write.

But what I really want to acknowledge first and will discuss in my next post, what I want to make sure anyone who reads this understands, is that I very quickly have become truly thankful for my disease.