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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Monday, March 23, 2009

Improvement

I’m still in the hospital. I’m still laying in the same bed I plopped into on Sat.
Now, thankfully, I can function at some capacity.
I have the energy to turn on my computer.
I have the mental capacity to write and know what I am saying makes sense!
This is an improvement.
This is what a couple days of IV fluids and antibiotics will get you.
My fevers have subsided. I am still coughing. My lungs are still rattling. I still have a head full of snot.
But this is an improvement. Despite all these problems, I haven’ had a fever in a while and I can think almost coherently. Almost.
Maybe, I’ll be able to go home today.
I saw the resident all ready. He said he’d consider my discharge.
I also know he has to consider my discharge alongside the fellow and attending.
Good news is, two of the residents I remember from years ago as an inpatient are now FELLOWS in hematology.
Yes, Hi Cocav & Martin, both treated me in their residency and are now specializing in hematology.
How could they not? Heme gives access to such amazing patients.
Okay, okay, it is also a burgeoning field with the possibility for revolutionary discoveries.
Discharged or not, no matter where I am, I see lots of rest and more sleep in my crystal ball.
This sickness took a lot of energy to fight. It will take some time to recover.
A STRONG MOTIVATOR to recover though this is the fact MY PICTURE is posted at the nurse’s station!
Yes, my picture, a picture of me, speaking to the legislature, is hanging on the nurse’s bulletin board!
The nurses here are some of the best I’ve encountered. I’ve thought of them often since my treatments have taken me elsewhere.
They were like family for a long time. I did spend the better portion of a year here, in their care.
And I see they remember me! They remember me and their proud.
Health care will become a huge issue in the coming years.
As our economy declines, as more people become unemployed, as fewer jobs offer health care packages and people begin to go without insurance to cut costs, social problems and public health issues that were hidden by our hyper-inflated economy and our previous years of wealth will rise to the surface.
Here is how to help.
Katherine KlemGrassroots Advocacy CoordinatorAmerican Cancer Society2 Commerce Drive, Suite 110Bedford, NH 03110katherine.klem@cancer.orgphone: 603-471-4112 fax: 603-472-7093http://www.acscan.org/
Jaime Contois
NH Organizer
Working Families Win
15 Eagle Court
Keene, NH 03431
jaime@wfwin.org
office: 603-354-0108
cell: 603-504-2906
www.workingfamilieswin.org
Sabrina Johnson NH Citizens Alliance
mailto:sjohnson@nhcitizensalliance.org?subject=Bank%20of%20America%20event
Lisa Kaplan Howe
NH Voices for Health
603-682-9944
Zandra Rice Hawkins
Granite State Progress
225-2471

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yay! I am glad you are improving! I have had lots of people ask me how you are doing! :) Keep on keepin on girl! :)