Just Another Cancer Story
For the past several months as probably most people who are reading this know I've had leukemia. For those of you who don't know what leukemia is it's basically blood cancer in my own rough way of putting it. It causes the bone marrow to produce immature white blood cells and hence breaks down the bodies immunities and ability to fight illness.
For those of you who might have stumbled in here out of the cold on accident my name is Mike. In chat I go by roadrunner_1971 and I'm priviledged to know some pretty awesome people as a result of that nick. I'm 21 now and currently living in Orlando, FL having suspended studies at Florida State in Tallahassee indefinitely. Cancer kinda has a way of throwing off your plans, even the best laid ones.
I have a compulsion for doing web pages and actually i think this one is more for me than anyone else. It's my way of chronicling what has happened to me and maybe some of you will find it interesting or helpful. I don't know why but something in me said do a page. So here it is. (or here's a couple of them)
Why Fever Blisters Really Suck
This whole adventure began at the end of my Spring semester at FSU. I was gearing up for finals and starting to burn myselr out with term papers and staying up til all hours chatting or bullshitting with friends. I was really psyched to go into the Summer semester and then to graduate by December. It was one of those times where things at school felt like they were laying themselves out for me.
On thursday before finals week I noticed an irritation on my lip. This irritation became a full blown blister by Friday morning. I tried to medicate it and deal in order to get thru the last day of regular classes. I did manage to make it thru but that afternoon while shopping with my friend Tim I was overcome with a fever. I was dizzy and could barely stand for a period and I was lucky to make it home.
When I did get home I checked my temperature which read 105 degrees. This concerned me but I took 2 advil and laid down for a bit. That night i couldn't sleep so I spent it talking with Tim and listening to music. I smoked a cigar despite the lip bothering me while Tim and I joked about what might be wrong with me. Cancer came up a couple times and I remember laughing and saying "I'm too young for that" or "I don't think I've smoked enough cigars to be concerned." And the reality is I wasn't too young and smoking had nothing to do with it.
The next day I went to the school medical center. After sitting around and being told I had a spider bite they sent me to the lab for blood work. When they got the results they told me nothing except that I was to go straight to Tallahassee Memorial's Emergency Room.
After a few hours in the ER a doctor came in to tell me it looked like a spider bite and they didn't know why I was there. 5 minutes later he came back and said a hematologist was coming to talk to me.
You know hematologists are great guys for the most part. At least the ones I've dealt with are pretty damned nice altho I must say certain ones can be annoying and distant.
This hematologist was pretty cool. He came in looked at me said you have 42,000 white blood cells in your blood. I figured that this was a bad thing, altho i didn't know at the time how bad. He also said he had looked at my cells and in fact they were immature and he was rather sure I had an advanced stage of acute leukemia.
Well it took me about a minute or so to start laughing and saying damn if Tim and I only knew how close we were last night. But as I started doing this the doc looked at me and said he had some more news. Well of course I was all ears. He then explained to me that the run time for most acute leukemias is about 4 to 6 weeks, interestingly the same time it takes for package deliveries. He said by the number and condition of my cells he would guess I was at week 3 or 4 easily.
Well being told you're less than a month from likely death can have a really invigorating effect. Or at least the shock has some form of invigorating quality. My mother was already on her way up from Orlando and my father was playing along by cell phone from Indianapolis. When my mom got there I was still at the hospital, for some reason they don't like it when the patient expresses a desire to drive off to a small island and await death with a bottle of 151 in hand. My mother was understandably shaken, I was working damage control when a nurse from the school clinic dropped in to check on my state. I guess you could say we had a nice group cry and hug.
My mom took me back to my apartment where I told my buddies Bruce and Tim what I had found out. Bruce who is usually a raving psychotic kinda sobered up and helped me out a lot. My one regret about that time was I didn't get to say goodbye to my friend Mike. Mike was destined to meet his fate a month later when he threw himself off Doak Campbell Stadium. He was a good friend and I've felt his loss and if I return to Tallahassee I am sure his absence will be more sorely felt.
The next day my mother had the van packed and we left my car behind with some of my belongings which she and my sister and her friend would return for later in the week. I was rushed home to Orlando where soon after arriving I was taken to Winter Park Hospital.
"Old LA Tonight" by Ozzy Osbourne, the last song I remember listening to before I found out. It means something I just don't know exactly what.