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, July 3, 2009

Cease and Desist

This morning was one of those mornings.
We all know the type, when you stub your toe getting out of bed, the hot water is out and then you realize you ran out of coffee. Yeah, that's your rough morning.
The bar for me has been set a little bit higher, and also I have learned, that an hour or two debaucle at the start of my day should not derail the day in its entirety.
Oh no, that would be one big waste of a day, and I am not feeling like time is on my side recently.
I woke up, as I always do, to x, bouncing and ready to start his day.
I coexed 20 min of extra sleep out of him before agreeing to get up.
In my sleepy haze, I knew I would be in extra pain today.
Extra pain is pain above and beyond my baseline daily suffering.
I reached for my morning oxycontin hoping to head it off, but when my feet went to fit the floor, my body revolted.
My feet held me but my stomach tightened and spasmed sending me into a hunched over fetal position and a wave of nausea shook my body, then chills.
Ugh. Good morning hillary.
I have been experiencing increased pain in my left should or "supra clavicular" above the collar bone area, which so kindly zaps down the left side of my spine when I do something crazy, like cough, laugh or breathe to hard.
This pain is familiar. It's a hall mark cancer pain.
It could also be that I haven't seen my beloved chiropractor in a couple weeks. To the klema's: I miss you guys. Mr. Dr. Klema (because there is a mrs and a mr doctor) has a magic accupressure touch.
I quickly tried to distract x from my obvious problems.
I hate when he sees me sick and struggling.
I brought him to the computer for webkinz time, but not before my stomach launched a full frontal attack.
X hadn't logged in before I charged to the bathroom with searing pains, nausea and chills.
I planted myself in the water closet with a waste basket at my feet and let my body go haywire.
Poor x, unable to be adequetely distracted, just paced outside the door.
I put my head in my hands and thought about all my options if my symptoms were to persist: call alyea or melissa and request a lomotil perscription to be called in here (I left my handy pharmacy box labeled "bowels" at home which has immodium, lomotil, colace, and triphala. I never know which way I may flow.).
I could wake brynn up and have her distract x while I collapse on the floor in agony.
I could go to the er here or I could just wait it out.
I choose the latter as usual, my favorite mind over matter. The "let's pretend and pretend I am not pretending" game.
I finally made it out of the bathroom to get some ativan, my nausea cure all.
" Maybe my GVHD isn't mistreating me. Maybe I don't have malignancies in my bowel that would cause these episodes. Maybe, I am just nervous and have an upset tummy and need to calm down." I thought to myself.
Ativan it is.
I also headed to the sink to put my contacts in, which is a necessity since they function as a scleral patch to retain moisture in my eyes.
Without this, my eyes burn, swell and are at more risk for infection.
I gazed into the mirror and then gave it a long stare, "was my right eye swollen? Was it all red or was it my imagination? Dammit, am I getting an eye infection?! I left my erythromycin eye ointment at home too!".
I guess when I travel to camp I won't be leaving home without my traveling pharmacy.
All those "prn" or "as needed" medications are needed.
As luck would have it, my eye is feeling better and the ativan has worked on my bowel, enough to allow me to eat.
All this happened before my morning cup of coffee, but do I really want it now?
Now, I can go about my day freely, pretending the trials of this morning never ever happened.
It is not worth losing a great leisurely vacation day over.
But this morning, was really just an extension of a couple shockers I experienced last night.
Yesterday was certainly special.
I was leisurely enjoying my vacation, ignoring my blackberry, emails, and technology for the day when I finally got bored supervising x going up and around the inflatable slide at c and c's baptist church freedom festival (which I have to say was a good time).
WHOA, surprise, hello, I have two out of the ordinary emails: one from a man on facebook I'll refer to as creepy mc creepster (McC) who friended me and when I didn't respond in under 24 hours sent a message asking "where I was and if I was still interested."
Interested? Excuse me? I'm confused. I clearly state I am married and unavailable.
McC contacted me, and I mistook him for a friend from high school of the same name, who was also foreign and english was his second language.
Do not make this adolescent internet safety mistake. His profile page says he is interested in "white people."
I am hoping he wants to research me and the message is getting lost in translation.
Let's all cross our fingers.
Dealing with a stalker is not on my list of things to do EVER.
Then, as if McC wasn't enough to throw my day off kilter, I received a cease and desist letter from a supplement corporation.
I am feeling big time, McC and a cease and desist letter all in one day.
People must be reading.
I apparently have made claims that are against a companies policy.
I, of course, will be removing the product information asap. In fact, the posting is all ready removed.
I have ceased and desisted.
Now, I know to be more careful.
Live and learn.
I think I'm going to get that cup of coffee and pretend I just started my morning.
We will still be hitting the zoo.

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