tramp stamp

Today I had my second bone marrow biopsy- which, after the first one in May I thought to myself, oh my god, I just did that thing, hooray, never again.

As it turns out, (WARNING: wincing stomachs be wary) tapping a giant ass needle (an ass needle.) into my hip and sucking out the juices and a piece of bone is the only way to check on the factory and to see how the poison-ahem, chemo-is working. I imagine it as a communication system, obviously in the most meager way possible because I'm a child: like a giant paper towel tube that we hover next to Bone Marrow's ear and scare the living daylights out of him by whispering suddenly 'hows it going'. And then run him through a juicer and take some pulp back to the Queen.

We find out what the Queen says probably next week, hopefully good news: that the chemo is working and slowing any progression down, even maybe pushing me back toward CMML-1. I don't know if that even possible, but I imagine so because the difference (as I understand it) between type 1 and 2 are the percentages of blasts (bad cells) in the marrow. If all is going well, we're lowering the blast numbers. We're essentially ruining the insane party they've been setting up over the past year. BLAST! yell the blasts. Sorry I'm not sorry.

So now I have a new tramp stamp on the opposite hip, which looks a lot like my first one:

you're welcome.

It's a bit swollen and sore, but nothing too bad.

Today was hard, actually. I'm feeling a lot better now, but it began rough and remained rough through most of my appointments. I really never lose it, but today I cried in front of a lot of people. I cried getting my IV in and getting blood drawn (granted it took three solid tries to get it), I cried in the waiting room outside the financial office. I cried in the lady's office. It was weird, I can usually hold it together. Not that I mind crying really, I don't. But it was just another reminder of how uprooted I am feeling these days.

Maybe I was really nervous about the biopsy. It means a lot. We find out if it's working, or if we need to be more aggressive in treatment. It also hurts. Apparently though, the diagnostic biopsy can be a lot more painful (it was.) simply because there are just more cells crammed in there (refer to the year-long party planning from earlier), and getting them out can be more difficult. For reference, when I arrived at Brigham and Women's, my WBC (white blood cell count) was around 78,000. A normal human is around 10,000. I'm currently around 34,000. That's right folks, I am no normal human. I dance to the beat of my own drum. My own cancer drum.

I've been working on writing down an summary of the past two months, starting with going to the hospital for something else entirely and sort of by chance/luck/love discovering that I have a touch of the cancer. I haven't decided the best way to post the backstory, but perhaps soon. I know there are people who don't know the story and who may be interested. I'll try to make it funny.

In other news, I worked two full shifts and two partial ones this week. Feeling like a contributor; you're welcome world--or at least, residents of Beverly who lusted over iced mochas all day. You're grandest coffee desires are my command.


Today's daily math:
-3 a tired sad day to start
+1 zucchini bread for breakfast!
-1 dropping said zucchini bread on the way to the car
+5 not too much traffic
-15 veins are getting tired and it took 3 tries to get a stable IV.
+1 cool bruises
-20 crying in front of strangers/the world
+2 coffee
+25 great nurse
-10 great nurse stabbing me with the giant Ass Needle
-5 lots of traffic out of Boston/everyone driving like a tool in the 100 degrees/you in the pickup.
+100 Marie's back from Philly, I missed her a lot.

daily total: 80

thanks Rie, you saved the day.