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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Tuesday, September 21, 2010

I'm baaack

I was supposed to get chemo yesterday.
I decided I'd rather take a full dose once monthly than half a dose every two weeks.
Both will exhaust me almost equally so I'd rather have the long recovery time.
But I didn't get it.
I've been sick with a little virus that makes me vomit and gives me diarrhea.
I'm also still spitting up yellow infectious snot from my lungs.
I called to cancel the day to sleep since every time I avert death I over celebrate a little.
This time I over celebrated with my besties from colleges, Colette and Laurette and their families.
Colette promised pictures, but hasn't come through.

Apparently, you can't just call and cancel chemo due to illness without being seen.
Not even if you're me.
I was put on 750mg of Levaquin for an antibiotic.
That's the M16 of oral antibiotics.
And good thing since I spiked a temp last night. I got up to 100 before I shot it down with tylenol.
Anna was right. . .  .again.

I'll be ending photo pheresis soon.
HOORAY! I'll take it once a month, the first week of October and maybe, Nov. Then, no more. Good bye pheresis.
But not without success, My lung function have stabilized and the drop seen in my last LFTs were probably from my pulmonary emboli.
I no longer have graft vs. host of the skin or mouth. Thank goodness. Those were miserable.
The GVHD of the eyes has improved markedly, but I still slough out white cells constantly. I may go see Dr. Dana who has two options to possibly cure GVHD of the eye: autologous tears and some other steroid compound kind of like restasis.
Both are proven effect but neither are FDA approved.
This means the cure for my eyes exist, it's just going to be thousands of dollars.
For more info on pheresis see Dr. Moss's report: http://www.cancerdecisions.com/mrstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=636
Or for specifics on ECP (which I received) check out :http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1131176-overview

I'm tired again. Hopefully I can stop kicking my own ass and keep up with the updates.

2 comments:

Loraine Ritchey said...

I have been checking every day and worrying ...... glad you are back..I have said it before you are one terrific young woman..Loraine

Anonymous said...

Glad to have you baaack Hillary!! You are so cute even in your hospital gown:))