Baldies' Blog began originally in the UK by a 26 year old journalist with a blood cancer on a mission to inform the world about bone marrow donation.

He has since died, and I took on the cause of making cancer care more transparent for everybody.

Cancer is a disease that will touch everybody through diagnosis or affiliation: 1 in 2 men will be diagnosed and 1 in 3 woman will hear those words, "You Have Cancer."

I invite you to read how I feel along my journey and
how I am continuing to live a full life alongside my Hodgkin's lymphoma, with me controlling my cancer, not my cancer controlling me.

I hope that "Baldies' Blog" will prepare you to handle whatever life sends you, but especially if it's the message, "You Have Cancer."

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Friday, December 12, 2008

My Perfect PA

Here is a picture of my phlebotomist from DHMC, Elizabeth. I said I’d get her picture up, then all hell broke loose with my body.
Her mother is currently undergoing treatment for cancer. Please send some of my prayers her way. All of us need all the support we can get.
As far as I go, I needed a professional validation that my pain and suffering was real, and that drug addiction was a problem I did not have to deal with now.
That was exactly what I needed. That was all I needed. I needed somebody from the outside who could see where I was coming from.
Pain, being neurological, is a tricky concept for me. I can’t tell if I’m truly in pain, or if I’ve opened the “pain pathways” so what would have been tolerable previously isn’t any longer.
I’m worried I’ve become an intolerant wimp. I do have legitimate pain issues. I would never take my meds for the “high.” Especially, since I just don’t like the feeling. I’m too controlling.
I am just all around ambivalent towards pain control. I feel guilty taking what I need. I feel like a drug addict for asking for control. It’s an uncomfortable subject.
Except, I’m a cancer patient. I do legitimately suffer day in and day out. This week I hurt in so many places my perfect PA (she was great) waved her hand that I could just stop giving details.
I’ve all ready announced to the world my physiological addiction.
Why would I do that?
Not only so people in my situation understand it’s a side effect of treatment, but so I’m now on check.
Nope, I won’t get away with being like this forever. I won’t get away with taking narcotics when I don’t need them, since I announced to almost everybody that knows me that I need to be watched.
There will be one massive intervention if I misbehave.
Believe that.
So I finally accepted my long acting oxycodone twice a day.
I took it before bed a last night, and when I woke up, I COULD STAND!!
My knees didn’t buckle in pain. My ankles didn’t threaten to give out. A pain shock wave DID NOT start my morning.
I am very happy I listened to her.
She’s my hero for the day, just for telling me what I do is okay

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