A surreal day, in which I get (diagnosed with) leukemia
This was the email I sent to a mailing list I'm on on November 14th:
On my own news front, it seems I probably have leukemia.
I got a perfectly normal head cold a few weeks ago, and while it was mostly better, I went back to the doc yesterday for a lingering sore throat and gums. Sat in the urgent care clinic with the other snifflers, got swabbed and blood drawn, got a scan of my jaw where it was hurting in case of a clogged salivary gland or something.
Then, pretty much as soon as I got home, the phone started ringing off the hook. Of course by then I'd been up several hours past my bedtime [since I've been working the night shift at the library this fall -- I'd gotten off a full day of work at 8am], so my first response was fuck the fucking phone, I'm going to sleep. By the sixth or seventh call in fifteen minutes, I realized whoever it was wasn't going to give up, so I started listening to voicemail and heard all kinds of anxious people telling me to get *back* to the hospital *right* *now*.
Apparently my white count is crazy high, my neutrophils are nonexistent, and I basically have no immune system. Shades of Madeleine, I need not tell anyone here.
So I'm here at MGH for the next few weeks at least, presumably, and feeling pretty much fine for the moment, though I didn't get much sleep last night. They're 90-95% sure about the leukemia, and we'll find out a ton more over the next few days. Chemotherapy to start in a few days once we have definitive diagnosis and after they've had a few days to flush me with the cop killer antibiotics (dripping as I type).
I've got my iPhone here with me, so phone and email and Internet, albeit somewhat cumbersome for long missives.
I'm still taking it all in, as you can probably tell. Seriously weird stuff.
Emily
On my own news front, it seems I probably have leukemia.
I got a perfectly normal head cold a few weeks ago, and while it was mostly better, I went back to the doc yesterday for a lingering sore throat and gums. Sat in the urgent care clinic with the other snifflers, got swabbed and blood drawn, got a scan of my jaw where it was hurting in case of a clogged salivary gland or something.
Then, pretty much as soon as I got home, the phone started ringing off the hook. Of course by then I'd been up several hours past my bedtime [since I've been working the night shift at the library this fall -- I'd gotten off a full day of work at 8am], so my first response was fuck the fucking phone, I'm going to sleep. By the sixth or seventh call in fifteen minutes, I realized whoever it was wasn't going to give up, so I started listening to voicemail and heard all kinds of anxious people telling me to get *back* to the hospital *right* *now*.
Apparently my white count is crazy high, my neutrophils are nonexistent, and I basically have no immune system. Shades of Madeleine, I need not tell anyone here.
So I'm here at MGH for the next few weeks at least, presumably, and feeling pretty much fine for the moment, though I didn't get much sleep last night. They're 90-95% sure about the leukemia, and we'll find out a ton more over the next few days. Chemotherapy to start in a few days once we have definitive diagnosis and after they've had a few days to flush me with the cop killer antibiotics (dripping as I type).
I've got my iPhone here with me, so phone and email and Internet, albeit somewhat cumbersome for long missives.
I'm still taking it all in, as you can probably tell. Seriously weird stuff.
Emily