Thanksgiving was nice here- my sister and her husband, their grown son and his family joined us. I arrived Tuesday…My grand daughters were with the other grandparents- missed them, but this is not a competition. Unfortunately my Sister and BIL from PA got sick- hacking and coughing- losing their voices… so we did not spend as much time as I would like to after t-day. This CLL thing, makes me feel like a sissy sometimes. I know that is not Politically correct- but staying away from possible infected people, really is a bear. It is another part of who I am that I have to give up. I wanted so much to just disregard the knowledge, ignore that I could get seriously ill from my loved ones, and ignore the conventional wisdom- Macho Man. But I didn’t.
I have been back in the sunshine state one week now…back in my own bed- playing with the grand daughters, watching over my elderly dog, Ming…and I have a couple of skin eruptions on my right elbow and left calf… I had several that had healed when I arrived in Columbus.
I have done some research; found a couple of somewhat highly regarded Allergist/Immunologist here in Tampa. Asking for the top dog, I will see him tomorrow. The goal is to see if he can assist in determining what is happening due to my weakened immune system…and hopefully come up with some suggestions. These freaky things are one of the worse challenges I face---I would love to find a way to identify what causes them and correct the issue… the belief that lymph mode growth internally are causing the skin issues doesn’t fly with my current Cal 101 program. My nodes are down…
In preparation for our appointment, I put together a time line of skin issues, hospitalizations due to skin eruptions/fevers, and periods of no skin challenges. It has been a pretty busy 11 years since I was first diagnosed with Bladder Cancer, and then Chronic Lymphocritic Leukemia nearly six years ago and the surprise loss of my right kidney to cancer (still suspect Cytoxan was the culprit) two years ago.
I seem to have difficult times with eruptions in the spring- mid-summer, and October.
Well, I am praying for some wisdom to be placed upon the Doctor.
I will be back in Columbus next week- clinic form Cal 101, and a coming out party for the stent placed inside my bladder. Hopefully that will eliminate my need to visit the bathroom so many time during the night...
Tough Times Don't Last- Tough People do.
God Bless
IMHO, staying away from sick people (or better yet, sick people staying away from others) is one of those old-fashioned, good health behaviors we seem to have lost over the years. This year's H1N1 outbreak seems to be reviving this, and it now seems to be politically correct to stop the Macho Man act.
ReplyDeleteThere is a story about German chancellor Bismarck (a real Macho Man) challenging a doctor to a duel. As the challenged party, the doctor could choose the weapons, and he chose 2 sausages - one of which had been infected with a deadly disease. The duelists would eat the sausages, and one would die a miserable death. Macho Man Bismarck declined to duel under those circumstances.