Fear

I haven’t been feeling well for months now.  Digestive issues mostly with a lot of pain in my stomach.  I’ve gone through a battery of tests and nothing except acid reflux has come up.  Which doesn’t explain the severe pain in my chest and abdomen. 

The diabetes is acting up again and they’ve put me back on Metformin which I am not responding to well at all.  I’ve had constant diarreah since going on it.  Bright spot is I do have my blood pressure firmly under control and my cholesterol levels have gone down since being put on a medication for that.  I’ve lost 15-lbs in a matter of weeks, which my doctor is concerned about.  I shouldn’t be dropping weight like this, I shouldn’t be physically exhausted all the time and I shouldn’t be in so much pain everywhere.  I mean, I usually carry on with pain every day and have for a great many years due to the Fibromyalgia, so I am used to pain and have a high tolerance for it.  Which is why my doctors are concerned because I am complaining about pain now.  EVERYWHERE.  In my shoulders, neck, arms and entire torso area.  In addition my left hip is killing me always and I learned I now have to deal with bursitis there.  Okay…it’s the chest/stomach pain I am having a really hard time with.

Besides the other things, I keep waking up in the morning with strange bruises all over me. I jokingly said when it first started happening, "WTF am I going 9-rounds with Mike Tyson in my sleep?" This past weekend I woke up and my hands and wrists were deeply bruised. So odd.  Sometimes they’re on my inner biceps, sometimes they’re on my legs.  But mostly my arms and hands.

Wednesday I went to the blood lab to get blood drawn.  As usual they had a miserable time finding a vein to stick me.  I went to the doctor yesterday.  For what I thought was a follow up for the diabetes and cholesterol.  Well I got handed some pretty bad news.  Okay, so potentially some pretty bad news.  Turns out that my white blood cell counts have been consistently going up for months now.  Even when I was sick with some virus or whatnot in July and on antibiotics my WBC count was inching upwards.  Normal range for WBC is between 4.0 and 11.0.  Mine is now at 19.4.  My PCP and my NP sat down with me and stated they’re worried about that and going to be sending me to a blood specialist.  I asked what this could mean and one word struck terror in me. 

Leukemia.

So yeah, pretty freaked out.  Trying to remain calm for the next 2-weeks until I see the specialist.  Don’t know what happens from here…I guess a battery of new tests.  Don’t know what I am going to do if that’s the final diagnosis.  Really terrified actually because I just don’t see Chris being a caregiver.  I’m terrified at what treatment might be, how sick I am might get.  Terrified I am going to wind up losing my house just when I finally got one.  My bank account sits at under $5,000.00 now due to all the repairs and buying it.  How am I going to pay all the bills if I am unable to work due to being sick from undergoing treatments?

Leukemia.  Wow.

Terrifed secretly…today is the 11th anniversary of my mother’s death…I am at the age when she first started getting sick.  Started with cancer in her too.  She was dead at 49.

Leukemia.