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Journey to Remission: ER

Once again it’s been quite a while since I’ve been in touch, but I am checking in tonight/this morning, as it feels quite natural to write to you guys when on a plane. I’m just leaving Calgary after a great week of Stampeding: pretty non-stop, lots of fun, plenty of “two-steppin’,” a few beers, a couple of great Canadian rock concerts and time spent relaxing and connecting with some buddies I don’t see everyday.

Things in my world have been rolling along nicely. This past 7-day holiday was the  first stretch tht long I have had without a work focus. It was on my mind, but minimally. Read a great book on the way there that was given to me by a friend quite a while ago – Lance Armstrong’s It’s Not About The Bike. Once again it was another experience that has really got me thinking about my book writing options. I am at the point where I need some guidance, and I feel if I had a “ghost writer” the process would be well begun, but it seems ghost writers only work for big time projects/celebrities. I think I’ll continue to explore as I have been, off and on, and we’ll see how it goes.

You’ll notice the title of this message – if you didn’t you probably have now – and as always I usually do give you some sense of what I’ll be writing about. This message is no different, as this morning for the first time in a long time (about an 18-month “long time”) I made a much needed trip to an emergency room.

After waking from my coma and leaving hospital in September 1999, I had a number of complications and struggles, many of which you guys know about. One of the more prominent ones was my “lung pains,” as I call them. I have never found a cause or sure-fire cure for my lung pains, but they happened fairly frequently after leaving hospital. They kind of feel like a cramp in your calf that wakes you in your sleep, except in my lungs. And I find it really hard to breathe or find any level of comfort when the pains kick in. For some reason my lung pains arrived this morning as I was beginning to think about packing to head to the airport, and they put me in a bad way. Bad enough that I thought I should head to the ER, so off we went to the nearest hospital, which was just around the corner. So I stumbled into the ER, and wasn’t bothered by the “Barney” type colouring on the walls, as I was in lots of pain, I soon found out that I was in the ER of the Alberta Children’s Hospital. Fortunately when you tell the admitting Nurse that you are a leukemia patient who’s had a transplant they don’t worry about the fact that you are 10 years out of their “target audience”. They brought me in, as if I was 12 (needless to say I didn’t fit their beds) and just like that I was back in “hospital mode”: the temperature gets taken, the blood pressure checked, and yes even the needles are all still part of the procedure. After dropping in an IV they quickly administered some Gravol and morphine, and I shot back something called a “Pink Lady” (it tastes like chalk).

My stay didn’t last too long as once I began to settle, which happened within the hour, they transported me to a more appropriate treatment facility (the bed still didn’t fit). After a couple of hours most of my lung pains has subsided, and then I began the re-familiarization with another very prominent part of any hospital visit – the waiting. After over 6 hours, a chest X-ray, and a couple of visits from the doc I was discharged. Once again, no sign of a cause, but should these episodes become more prominent I’ll have to investigate.

My hospital visit revealed some very important information, and as a result I am skipping the Toronto part of my trip. For some reasons, unknown as of yet, my white cells have dropped. My last blood was taken two Friday’s ago, however I don’t have the results as Monday past was a holiday. The blood test prior to that showed my white cells at 3.0, which is low, but my neutrophils were acceptable (they are very important for fighting any disease). Presently my white cell count is 2.2 with a neutrophil count of 0.7, which the doc described as neutropenic, a term you may remember me writing about. So I’m heading home in hopes of planting myself where I belong, and figuring out what’s happening with my blood counts.

I feel fine, just a little tired (probably from the Gravol and morphine) and I’m sure there will be an adjustment back to Rock Standard Time. But I’m feeling pretty good and a planning to connect with my doc in the next day or so.

This has served as another “not-so-gentle” reminder that each day is precious, our next year, month, day, hour is unknown. Living in the present is important, as Dr. Scully has advised me to “Prepare for death, plan to live.” This is a lesson I feel I have learned, but it is also important enough to have reinforced every now and then.

I’ll let you know how things flow this week, and have a great day, enjoy each moment.

Always…
Live Life. Love Life.

Geoff

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