Been two months

Well its been two months since my last post, and one month since i started work. Work is not good for my health Im concerned, the stress, the worry, the fact that I am extremely uncomfortable when Im there is terrible. But hey, if they know Im uncomfortable Im gonna get fired. Well at least thats what they told me. I am slowly recovering, having a lot of tingling in my hands and feet, almost feel like spiders crawling on me all the time, just might go nuts. Im just focused on a few things with my main focus on recovering and getting the fuck healthy again. I was told today I have one of the best attitudes that someone has seen from a cancer patient which felt good.


Oh by the way, I gotta plan for work, just takes time, just takes time.

Question..

I'm just curious... click here and if it says 24.29.195.65, and you use a mac, an ipad and windows pc please comment, I'm curious of your extreme interest in my blog, maybe i can explain and help you out.

Denial-- The Best Way to Deal

I just noticed today that the best way to deal with cancer is pretend nothing is wrong, well at least for me. I make that choice because anger self pitty, shit like that doesnt work.. But If I pretend I'm just doing this for kicks, then hell I might make it through it. When I see children going through as young as 8, and 7, and 6 that have to deal with what I'm dealing with I get overwhelmed with what the fuck is wrong with society with this fucking world, that this can affect the innocent. I know I'm not innocent, Im not saying I deserve cancer, but I always knew it would happen to me, but when I was like 8 I didnt know wtf cancer was. And I cant help but have the effect me deeply. I take this with all the humor i can, with all the 'good spirits' i can but there has got to be a time where I can punch a god damn fucking wall and say "what the fuck, you stupid mother fucker, why the fuck do i have this. why me, why couldnt it be me 50 years from now, 40 years, 20 years 10 years, why the fuck me why the fuck now" But I cant. I have to stay the strong sober type and shovel through this fucking bullshit we call life. I mean jesus christ, I'm 28 Years old and was told by a doctor, that this cancer will end up killing me one day, this cancer has no cure, that remission is not a cure. How the fuck can someone handle that and not flip the fuck out, I dont know. I am super emotional and annoyed today because of the treatment yday and I am miserable as hell. and What even pisses me off more is I see how people bitch and complain about how they stubbed a toe today, or how they hate their job, or they have to get a filling and it just pisses me off, cause I just want to tell those motherfuckers you got it easy, you have no fucking idea how easy you have it, you are one lucky fucking person if the only thing you have to worry about in your day is you hate your job, or you stubbed your fucking toe, you are one lucky son of a bitch..


well sorry about the tone. but what can you do..


Thanks again..

Holy Shit its been a month

And what a month has it been. The status on my cancer has been so so.. but I have two chemos left and a ct and bone marrow biopsy and hopefully Im done for atleast a while. Im sitting outside and tend to think my bald head sweats more then one with hair but that might be impossible. Im very anxious to go back to work, its might be causing more nausea then the chemo actually. Its just an environment well lets not get into that here.

But so far to say, the final amount of my eyebrows left me. Everything is leaving me lately lol.. and My sanity will no doubt be next. Im still dealing with the swelling in my leg due to the fact that the took a lymphnode out. i would have much rather left it in and fucked it up with chemo then took it out and deal with that side effect. But I will start putting more time away for writing more, I want to write about my transition from treatment back to reality and see how that goes. but thats over a month away.

Ive noticed the more shows I watch effect(affect? no its effect) my mood.. I was watch the full run of the sopranos and was getting town, almost needed to talk to dr melfi myself, then i started watching the wire, and wanted to be a cop lol, now I started watching Larry David in curb your enthusiasm, and im thinking, holy shit I act like this... I need some money so i can walk around doing what he does all day.

But this is just a short update...


again sorry for the delay...and the typos I said fuck editing this time lol..


Dan


P.S. I hate bugs, and I've never put off on my head before... yup there went my sanity

Ok.. My week coming up and the bone marrow biospy info

Its been about 6 days or so since I posted, I have a lot coming to me in the next couple weeks , I have a CT scan where the roll me in and out of a huge donut looking thing to see if my lymph nodes are responding to the treatment. For that I start fasting on thursday and the only think i can drink is something that taste's like liquified chalk. Yummy. The procedure is about 10-15 mins, no pain whatsoever so thats nice. On that point I goto chemo on tuesday, early, most likely because of easter, YAY.


Ive had a lot of questions come from you people about my experience from my Bone Marrow Biopsy, So I will go into that right here... First of all it was the most pain I have ever been in, in my life I guess the technical term for what happened to be was a Bone marrow Biopsy and Aspiration. They number to portions of my back on either side of the spine... (well tried to numb LOL) and stuck a nice long needle down into my back until the got to the bone, then they took a another needle a little smaller with an opening the middle and took part of the hard bone marrow, the best way I could describe this they took a cork out of a wine bottle, like a tiny cork of bone marrow, did that on both sides. They the took a huge needle then stuck it in the bone past the hard marrow into the liquid marrow, and started sucking the liquid marrow out. QUITE uncomfortable, you feel like every bone in your body or aleast around there is going to implode. Its definitely a "sucking" feeling.




oh and Ive added Sponsored Links (ads), over there to the top right, trying to see if this can help anyway to the dan cause, maybe maybe not...


If the links are annoying or anything let me know i will removed them, if you want browse through em and see if you like any of them and take a look.


Please watch this at your own risk, its pretty much the same thing I went to... :(

Another Day, another headache

Its been a while since I posted. Lately the steroids have been keeping me up all the time, day and night, finally got about 5 hours of sleep last night which is more then I have had total since friday. I'm having a hard time focusing and keeping a cool head. Along with the increasing bone pain I have in my back and my legs I am getting hard pressed to control my emotions. I'm getting aggravated at little things and getting stupid thoughts in my head. Its gonna be a tough week, but hopefully once this set of steroids is over I go back to normal, or well almost normal. Instead of staring at the ceiling and wishing i was asleep and this pain would go away, maybe it will. only 2 more days of steroids.

My New Anti-Nausea Drug

I have been great lately, besides some bouts and some leg pain Im feeling, awesome. Besides having to sleep every two hours for 4 or something like that its kinda draining, I do have chemo this Friday and normally I'm super nervous , but my feelings are focused on one thing, and I cant stop focusing on them, its great though. and she knows what she does... but tomorrow i will post more about whats going to happen on Friday, and have some better videos, and I still have not forgot about the post about the bone marrow biopsy and aspiration ..... so that will come today.

My amazing weekend

For the first time since I was diagnosed, I felt like a healthy person. I seem to think that dealing with cancer has got to be more mental then anything, although honestly if hasn't sunk it yet. It just amazing to spend time with a person who doesnt demand items or want items to be given or stuff to be done to hang out, to just be passionate to just spend time.  I felt normal!!! and all i did was talk to a few friends and a #goddess. Although i still deal with the what i call the aftermath of chemo, and the aftermath of my actions and some previous peoples actions(you know who you are.... i see you! Leave a comment, its anon! ) Im to a point where I am happy with everyhing and can face anything no problem.  I will have better videos friday of chemo if my blood counts are okay(they monitor your blood to see if they get so low you can get sick really easy so they could stop it, but not me Im superman.!) 


<3 to all, and love to you!

Rapunzel Rapunzel are those extensions? if not let your hair down.

Sorry guys its been such a long time since i blogged. Ive been really busy, I went home for a little while and visited work, didnt feel like home though felt different, hung out with some friends. loved it! The only think chemo wise is thats killing me is that im constantly tired, take alotta naps, no energy sometimes, although when i see someones name on my phone god, it gets my heart rushing.  Like a little kid. Im nervous for chemo next friday but, that always makes me nervous.  So keep pushing through.  I'm to a point that it sunk it that I know i have cancer(took some time didnt it) now I am taking every opportunity, every gift as a new thing, as a new price of life.

But living is a constant reminder of cancer, and vice versa, every time I put my hand through my hair haha, i mean on my bald head it reminds me, but also tells me that things gets better have been getting better and will continue to do so.

I'm more optimistic now then I have been before, more full of joy, and full of love because of this experiance, its quite life changing. 

On the other hand, my next post will explain the bone marrow biospy and aspiration i had in the past, it will explain exactly whats happened and how it felt because i did get a lot of questions about that.  and please if you have any questions yourself, please mail me or post Id be happy to answer.  Better knowing then not ya know!!

Bone Marrow Biopsy....

I was reading and thinking about this just now, so Id figure Id post. That procedure was the most pain I have ever had in my life, and Im an adult, but there are children that have to do that all the time, different kids every day, and it makes me sad.  I wish i could handle the pain for them but I can't.   But there is something we all can do, with this budget bull shit going on they are cutting a lot of money from cancer research and this effects friends neighbors brothers sisters kids,, parents. even yourself(yea, I cant believe it myself.)...    so what we can do is show out spirit, our resolve our passion for beating this bullshit, donate.    http://www.lls.org/#/waystohelp/donate/  ,   http://www.lymphoma.org/,   although I have NHL,   its normally diagnosed it much older adults, but, Leukemia is also a blood cancer and it effects kids, Childhood Leukemia Foundation.

Lets do enough research to put these needles in the distant medical past like leeches or  cough syrup out of bark, bethroot, and water,  yum...

I have mixed emotions today, on one hand I have not been happier I'm so excited. I'm like a 3 year old on christmas eve wanting to open my gifts now.  On the other hand, I think its not fair, its not fair I have to wait a week, I have to imagine for another week me looking into her eyes, feeling her soft skin against mine. I want to taste those lips right now. To feel her head on my chest as she snores(well a little bit, hehehe) as I kiss her forehead and wish her to be nowhere else but there.  Its a crazy beautiful world we live in where things this magical can happen, crazy=me and me waiting(Bi-Winning, haha) beautiful = her(#goddess, #winning) of course.  But I'm an adult a patient man, and can hear her voice, see her words, and read her wisdom until then. I'm sorry this is so small but I'm afraid to write to much, to express to much, because as much as I like asses, I never want to see that one run away from me :) 

Something so Right?

Have you ever been grateful for some terrible things in your life that got you to where you are right now?  Have you ever felt that without this that happened to me I would have been touched by someone, something  so amazing.  You feel like you want to through all the rules out the window and just take what you have been missing your whole life and didnt know it.  Thats how I feel, thats what I'm going to do,  I am so sure of how I feel or what I feel about this you dont even know. 

My Friday. With Videos

Well today is sunday, sorry for the long delay in posting but but after noticing some visits i almost decided not to post again, probably enjoying my pain, but this is not about that, this is about helping other people and in the process helping myself.

They first start out with the IV of  Saline basically salt water, a whole liter, but that i didnt take a video of , but you can use you imagination. 










Then they start with the retux drip, this is the chemo that takes hours very slow drip, very annoying.  Now some peoples chemo takes like a total of 1 hour 2 hours 3 hours, but that depends on the cancer, mine takes 6 or 7 so its an all day event and kicks your ass for the following few days. Here is that video,(LOL the syfy channel was in the back ground, at the end you can hear star trek them playing lol. as i posted on fb I was hoping that spock, or atleast kahn could cure me, they didnt!) BTW Sorry its upside down, lol damn tablet.

Next is the Pushes.  a Push I guess is a term that some special person made up, but it makes sense , they are huge syringes and get pushed in, doxorubicin which is red and turns your pee a short of rainbow(please dont mention the skittles commercial haha) which there are 4 or 5 (sorry Chemo Brain) and Vindocrisitne which is clear, and are only one, I only did a small video of this, you can see the redness go up the IV into my arm, they go real slow because it can get on the skin and go right through it and cause like a huge burn and break the vein which fucks up the inside of your arm, its kinda scary that your veins can handle it.  But I only did the video of a small portion of Dox so people have an idea what a push is.

Then the final part of the out patient chemo is another iv drip, no video and i forget the name because i was passed out by then, rough day,

Then the final part of this specific chemo is prednasone tablets, wich are steriods and taken for the 5 days of the chemo, it helps you from crashing, it keeps you from sleeping and keeps you angry lol. but it my case it doesnt have to work to hard for that.

Basically thats rchop in a nutshell and people go through this all the time, Im sorry for not getting videos of all the drugs but its not a overall joyful experience and is quite taxing on the body.

This Friday

Friday is a big day for me.  Lots to do at the cleveland clinic.  First they are doing an echo cardiogram(Sp?) Where they take a look at my heart do see how Doxorubicin(sp?) is doing to it, and to get a baseline.  Because that medicine is heart toxic and you can only have so much in your lifetime, they have to know how bad they are screwing it up to begin with. haha (from Wikipedia " However, by 1967, it was recognized that daunorubicin could produce fatal cardiac toxicity.".

Then I get to spend some time with my oncologist and and its like the same questions how are you doing, how are you feeling, etc. etc.  Then i do 6+ hours of chemotherapy.  They reason it is so long is because retuxicion(sp) can cause some major reactions so they have to drip it entirely to slow, the good news is that has no real side effects afterwords, its the other cancer drugs that do it to ya.  Whats funny is that Doxorubicin has a problem with heart toxicity, but there are 5 huge syringes, where each syringe takes like 5 minutes .  The others are pretty quick and I get to sit in a little room with a tv/vcr from 1985, I even thought it was a beta and first, and get my own bathroom and wifi(yay for me) and sit there and try to keep myself from going charlie sheen the whole day with an iv stuck in my arm. 

So I will be on my way to cleveland tomorrow, so I may not post, but I probably will post during chemo, and will try to videotape what happens so people get some sort of idea what hundreds of thousands of people go through during it.  It wont be continuous buts its so long but it will just be the good parts, well if you can call them good parts.

grrrr

Today has been a bad day for me, I believe that this disease is effecting me mentally, I am getting so fucking angry, and its hard not to snap at people.  I dont know what my options are, i hate taking the fucking pills they give me because it makes me totally fucking stupid, unable to think and concentrate.  WTF is with the fucking disease.  Its sad that people much younger then I have to deal with this, we have children going through bone marrow aspirations and biopsy, which I must say is some of the most extreme pain i have ever felt in my life.  and then people in washington want to cut 1.6 billion dollars for cancer research to stop suffering that affects so many people so many families.  Its extremely dishearting to have to see that to deal with that,  that if we put the money in research and healthcare as we do attack ads, or as we give tax breaks to oil companies that earn record profits every year and still costs me 50 bucks for fill up a 9 gallon tank.  WTF is wrong with us, i guess its because they expect dying people to be dead by the next election. 

Getting off my soap box, and I apologize that this wasnt a more substantive post. 

"Who did you hair like that" --"my insurance", Winning!

Yes, that very comment came out of some strangers mouth today, I just had to laugh.  I shaved my head a few days ago but starting yesterday other hair on my body started coming out in chunks. Yay, Im going to be the biggest 10 year old boy anyone has ever seen.  But today seems to be a decent day, I;m having quite a bit of trouble though with my leg, it apparently is my system adjusting to one less lymph node. It like an extreme tightening feeling and i am see some swelling but its normal .  I am thinking about videotaping my next chemo, well not the whole thing because the process takes eight effin hours, but each part each drug, to give people an idea what they are going through with rchop, because not knowing first hand it was a killer, you walk into this room, and see this chair that vaguely looks like an electric chair, or something they strap you into when they give you lethal injection.  The first thought in you head is like what the fuck did I get myself into and start scoping for the nearest exit. I just pretend during chemo that a spider is going to bite me and I turn in to Spider Man, and go around fight crime, or that they are injecting me with antimatium and I will turn into wolverine and have pretty awesome claws that will never allow me to get on a plane again.  Ehhh But its just poison injected into my body for a specific thing one to stop stop cell division the other is to kill the cells.   But my lovely imagination can take me anywhere,  its in a (comic)book, i can be anything , chemo rainbow... :P

Wow

Even The Puppy Feels it Too.

When I started this I figured , oh yea it might help some people , and its mostly for the people I know if they want to know how I'm feeling,  But I'm getting visits from Warren, Austintown to Chicago to Nevada, Missouri, Mason, Hawaii and Greece. Its kind of an amazing I think, that some of my words can help other people cope, my laugh(although I'm not that funny, I wish I was).  But onward to why I'm posting today, today seems like a very normal day besides the bone pain and it feels like my scalp is on fire, but that is normal, it normally happens before the hair falls out all over the place and can happen for a few days. Its stranger then fiction. I feel like I should be in one of the commercials for head and shoulders, does you hair feel hot and try, i just want to scream I feel it tingling I do., But i am starting to also feeling like tingling in my feet that doesn't go away, like your feet are constantly asleep, I'm waiting to fall down to make a complete ass out of myself, which I hope someone gets a video of. And I was thinking , for the people who have no idea what chemo is actually, I want to video tape each important part with my tablet then I will upload them here I can explain in each detail what has happened. 


Please Share with your friends, comment, maybe it will help someone, maybe someone you share it to has questions that i have answers to. You never know..

Thanks for hearing me out once again.

I cant Dance I cant Sing, the only thing about me is the way I Limp.

Today, is pretty Crazy day, started out talking on the phone with my boss, told her everything thats going on (Nancy) and she was very caring and supportive. So basically slept until about now pretty much, very very tired and fatigued today.  Downloaded a bunch of movies but didn't even watch one,  I gotten woken up by a phone call, my case thingie I have been dealing with it at work has been handed over to a federal investigator.  Hopefully s/he sees it like a sane person, and not like everyone else there ,hopefully he sees  she waited 13 days for that, that absolutely doesn't make sense. Then they can address the hopelessness i feel and the dread that i feel every time i walk into that place about losing my job  and my life if that happens, I cant afford what Im going through without my insurance. But lets talk about something happy.  For those of you that read this because its my experience with lymphoma , check out www.lls.org  its an amazing website and they have a had to Young Americans With Cancer on tuesdays at 830  its a great place and you get to meet a lot of people with.     There is also i2y.org really good information and resources to people with cancer from 10-39 i think.  Pretty Amazing stuff out there. 

One thing in i2y.org shopping cart caught my attention, and has been my focus since being diagnossed, they keep wanting me to go into remission just one thing, REMISSION IS NOT A CURE.   Grrrr..  I want to spend my free time, donate my extra money so that one day, a 28 year old whos diagnosed with NHL , can be told hey, no problem, we'll do this, this , this and your done. 



Dreams can Happen Right?

Hair.. I shall say good night till it be morrow

Today, I took a big step, and I took back a little of my control. I shaved my head, it was coming out anyway, thinning in places it shouldn't have just aggravating and embarrassing me, So I got me a mach 5 razor and starting going to town besides a few tiny skirmishes with little bloodshed overall it went very well. I do believe when I first picked up that orange and brown plastic razor with my damp hands and felt in flex in my hands, For the first time in Sunk in, Holy Shit, I have cancer. WTF, Well i worked past it and slowly line by line removed the hair that was left, or was really thinning at this point.. Up and Down Line by line around the head and then did Left to the Right Line by line. Not that i had much hair to begin with but Might as be a perfectionist at least on this..Here is a snap shot.

Those are not catapilers, i still have my eyebrows left thank god.

This is something i will have to chalk it up to something new,  But Lets see how it grows out.  And for people reading this blog who are dealing with lymphoma, when you do this it give you an amazing sense of power, I basically was telling the cancer to stfu , and Im not waiting for you to take my hair, Ill do it when I want..

But on another note, this action had made it actually sink in that I am very Ill. and I  can;t out that into words, YET, but I will.


Comments are allowed guys, and you can be anonymous

March 1st 2011

Interesting title huh? lol. well I figured Id write today and let people know. This morning I went to the cleveland clinic for what they call is a post op doctors visit. I like when the call doctors visits post op because no copays lol. The did an ultrasound to make sure i had no blood clots or anything that could kill me, which came back clean. YaYaYa LOL. But today chunks of my hair started to come out there and I didnt notice till i was leaving it was sooo embarrassing. I always wear a hat too but today I didnt. I figure Id give it a couple days then I will shave it off completely, maybe i will dress is very bad and dirty clothes and go panhandle and make some extra cash haha. But so far todays been decent, found out ill probably be out of work for a few months, so that will be a good time. But to be honest, Id Muchhhh very much rather be working. Sorry for the short one today but, its one.


:)

Marginal Zone Lymphoma

I was blogging at another website but it was getting aggravating and such, So I figured Id move over to Blogspot.  As background, My name is Dan, I'm 28 and on Jan 10th 2011 I was diagnosed with Marginal Zone Lymphoma, which is a type of blood cancer.  They removed a mass about 7 or 9 cm from me, cant remember which, but both are extrememly large sizes lol from my thigh.  It apparently was one of my actual lymphnodes. So I decided to write to get everything out the the open and get it out from rolling inside my head and maybe possible help someone else out who is in my boat here or later on in life. At this point I am 10 Days inside my chemotherapy regime RCHOP which stands for Rituximab, Cyclophosphamide, Doxorubicin, Vincristine, Prednisolone.  From what i understand its pretty normal but difficult treatment. But my experiance so far hasnt been that disagreeable.  I am having issues sleeping but the ativan helps when i take it. And little issues with my stomach.  The biggest issue i feel is with bone pain, for some reason it just get terrible but again it might just be in my head. I still eat enough to kill a horse because there is nothing else to do and besides taking naps I am pretty much normal. but again I am only on day 10 since first chemo treatment.   

I will post regular updates about my side effects, experiances and emotions to help or let people know what not to do.. lol.