Juggling Act
I feel like my life is a juggling act. Juggling work, juggling illness, feeding cats and trying to heal. I realized today that I have an army of specialists and yet I still feel like things are one step forward, one step back (which admittedly is better than before when it was two steps back). […]
Heart In a Box
I find this freakishly cool. The idea that live organs are shipped in cooler boxes has always seemed a bit archaic to me. This is something that solves that. A beating heart (or breathing lung) box that simulates the physiology of the body so that better transplant recipients can be found and organs can be shipped over […]
Girl in the Bubble
It really sucks when the entire world, including your own house, becomes your enemy.
A love letter to my white blood cells
Dearest White Blood Cells, Oh you pesky little buggers that keep me alive and free from nasty infections. I never really thought of you much and that was wrong of me. A terrible oversight that makes my heart ache and my mind tense from the thought of what life could be without you. Alas, at […]
I lied. A chemo followup. Hilarity and pain ensue.
So it is Saturday following the chemo that I had on Monday. And my perspective on chemo has changed radically from the afternoon that I wrote that post after having spent 3 days in the hospital following my infusion. I arrived home around 5:30 in the evening and felt completely fine. My lovely friend and […]
Mystery Diagnosis
If you want to know what happens when you get transverse myelitis and how confusing it is for doctors to diagnose this rare disorter that I also have, this episode of Mystery Diagnosis gives you a pretty accurate account of what was happening to me in the hospital the first trip in June. Thankfully, I was […]
What happens at chemo?
I bet some of you are wondering what actually happens at a chemo session. So I figured I’d break it down for you. I am lucky because I only have to do my treatment every 3 weeks. There are people that come in days in a row for weeks or longer. Here is how it […]
Healthy Health Update
It is September and the weather in San Francisco is beautiful, if not a little chilly. I have been slowly getting back to work and finally last week spent an entire 40 hours on the computer. Yes, not all of it was spent productively working away, but at least my stamina is coming back. Tomorrow […]
Summary of things…
My mood changes like the San Francisco weather these days. I can go from happy and hopeful to sad and fearful in about 2.4 seconds. I think you can tell from my trash can what mood I was in this morning. I should be sponsored by Kleenex for tissues and Walgreens for medications. And I’d […]
Things you probably don’t know about transverse myelitis
Not that I would expect anyone to know a whole lot about transverse myelitis, but here is more information on the spinal inflammation that I have and why I walk with a cane these days. By Kevin Weilacher 1. It is a cousin disorder to Multiple Sclerosis. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/neurology_neurosurgery/specialty_areas/project_restore/conditions/ 2. Fairly rare disorder, only 2-5 people per million […]