Day + 69

Hello everyone, from a foggy afternoon in San Diego. I wish I could tell you that the last few weeks since my last message have been pleasant, but they have been anything but. I have been battling nausea, back pains, heavy fatigue and the latest newcomer to the party, low equilibrium.

As you could imagine, the last few weeks have been pretty rough for me. My days have been pretty simple. Eat four to six meals a day, walk once and a day, go to the doctor if required and if not then try to squeeze in a movie or something. But now when you introduce the level of nausea I had, the appetite I lost, the back pain that came from it…you don’t even want to get off the couch. You don’t want to eat. You don’t want to talk on the phone. You don’t want to text, email, talk or communicate with anyone in any way shape or form. It really is like living in your own private hell. Due to all of this my doctors put me through some pretty invasive tests that involved tubes going in parts of your body where naturally they just don’t belong. The worst part about that whole experience is that I woke up half way through it and start pulling the tubes out of my mouth. Then I would fall asleep again 5 seconds later, then 5 minutes later I would wake up again and do the whole thing again. Luckily it only happened when the tubes were in my throat and the biopsy’s all came back negative so it all turned out good.

Even in all of that pain, I was still able to find some pockets of fun. The best being able to attend the Laker game on Christmas day when they beat the hell out of the Celtics. It is by far the best professional basketball game I have ever been to. The energy alone charged my battery for a solid three or four days not to mention the fact the Lakers ended the Celtics winnings streak. I am going to stop with sports there because it is going to take me a good 6 – 7 months to get over Sunday’s event’s. Ok, so enough of the pain and misery I have been suffering through over the last few weeks. All I can say is I am happy I am able to find an hour of “sunshine” to write this.

So on the health side, there is some good news. I did learn that my body has completely engrafted to my donor’s bone marrow. This is what the doctors have wanted to see since the test went out six weeks ago or so. It means that the likelihood of complications that should arise from the transplant should be cut down to minimum now because of this. My counts are also still doing very well and continue to impress the doctors. Some of the issues I was having during the last few weeks led my doctor to send me to see a neurologist. He seems to think my headaches are deeper rooted that just surface pain. I disagree but we’ll see. This means I have to go in for an MRI in a few weeks, but I’ll be sure to report the finding of that back to you as I get the results.

That’s about all I have for now. My victories are being measured in very small doses lately. If I sleep through the night without being restless, that is a victory. If I wake up in the morning and can make to the kitchen and make a bowl of cereal without my back killing me, that’s a victory. If I don’t pick up a head ache inside of 15 minutes of waking up, that’s a victory. If I can make my girlfriend smile at any point of the day for any reason what so ever, that’s a victory. There are a million others, but I’ll take that last one of the rest any day. She has done so much for me over the past month especially, she is just unbelievable.