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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Sunday, September 12, 2010

How to email your provider

Very simple, important info here folks.
When calling, emailing, faxing your health professional you need to know what to say, and it doesn't have to be all smarty-pants medical jargon.
It needs to be concise and factual.
I feel like crap doesn't help.
I feel like crap with chest heaviness and a temp of 101.5 does.
Always know your temperature before calling a doc.
Here's my email update to my fab NP from Dana Farber.


Hi Melisa, Bad news. This is Hillary St.Pierre. Thanks for your email. It's been a while since I've seen you. I missed my six week check up due to illness/ chaos. I restarted chemo (Velbam) to maintain my cancer, and unfortunately have not been able to wean myself off Prednisone (I'm on 2mg daily). However, this past week I was hospitalized with bilateral PEs and pneumonia. My Vital capacity has gone down 7% since June (before the PEs were discovered). I feel like I'm failing more and am wondering what can be done to stop any progression. I'm taking lovenox and have switched my PCP prophylaxis from Bactrim to mepron due to ideological myelosuppression (my ANC was 290).  I need to know if I should keep weaning my photo pheresis (I'm down to two weeks a month), keep on, or just stop.  Should I get a pneumonia vaccine? Any vaccines? I'd just like to check-up.  I'll call the office tomorrow to schedule an appointment. I just wanted to give you a heads up. If there is anything special you'd like me to bring let me know. Thanks.
Hill

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