Well the news just keeps getting better.

When I got home last night, I had a call on my answering machine from the hematologist’s office asking me to call back regarding my most recent blood test. The last dream I had this morning was about trying to call them back on my cell phone, having the lab tell me I needed a lumbar puncture, me complaining, the lab hanging up in the middle of my sentence, me trying to call back but getting an after hours message, and then a giant poodle peeing on my leg.

Well, I got up and called. My kidney function tests are off and I’m probably dehydrated. I’m supposed to drink a lot of water and then go for yet another blood test on Monday morning.

Blood-test-o-rama.

My friend Greg helped distract me today, for which I am grateful. As we were looking for a place to get breakfast, I got a call from the hematologist’s office, asking for another blood sample. They also needed it before 10AM. My guess is that my insurance requires the lab at Providence to do the processing and so the hematologist’s office can’t do it on site. I’m also guessing that the courier comes at 10AM and otherwise my blood can sit and go bad. This is all just a guess.

We hit the Overlook for breakfast, an old-time diner with a huge bar. They were playing loud 80’s music, and the bar looked full of customers even at breakfast-time. It was all a bit surreal.

I spent quite some time watching Return of the King because the movie was at least 3 hours long and there were two babies crying in the row behind me. I’d recommend the movie to anyone. Well, I’d suggest seeing the first two movies first and trying to avoid movies with babies in the audience, but you know what I mean.

Well, I certainly didn’t like what I read about CML.

I used my limited background in Bioinformatics to search the web and Medline, and I don’t like the outcomes (i.e. survival rates) I saw. I’ve read enough papers in chemistry and molecular genetics to know where to look for the bad news. I’m going to ignore them for now.

I’m still hoping that they’re mistaken even after three blood tests and I just have Lyme disease. Or syphilis. OK, not syphilis. How about Lyme disease?

The good news: a bone marrow biopsy wasn’t as bad as I imagined.

What hurt the most was numbing with Xylocaine which burned like crazy and sucking the bone marrow out which felt like I had a charley horse in my buttock.

The bad news, the doctor said:

One possible treatment is Gleevec. However, I saw this quote on the American Cancer Society web page

…the cost of treating a patient with Gleevec is estimated at $25,000 per year. Should a young patient continue to take this drug throughout his or her lifetime, it would be very expensive compared to other therapies currently available.

There’s always the chance that it’s all a mistake.

My sister told me not to worry about it, since we won’t really know until the lab analysis comes back. My next appointment is on New Year’s Eve. I don’t know how I’m supposed to keep from worrying, unless I’m completely drugged.

This could get a lot worse.

This Monday isn’t as bad as last Monday.

I was tired today. I was so tired I took a nap at noon (just like last week) and had to drink coffee to keep from falling asleep a couple hours later. But I didn’t break my car (that I know of) and I didn’t get any bad news from my doctor. That’s tomorrow.

Yesterday I watched the movie Rififi, an old French jewel-heist movie which I would recommend. Today I received a couple more movies from GreenCine, High Fidelity and Sex, Lies, and Videotape.

I meant to see High Fidelity when it first came out but by the time it was in the cheap theatres, I was going out with someone who refused to see it with me. I was, once again, rebound-boy and her previous boyfriend had stolen a bunch of her rare punk-rock records and sold them. She thought he got the idea from the movie, which they watched together. I read the book and it’s about relationships, something I haven’t experienced recently. And there seemed to be some sort of parity in their cheating. Most cases in my geek life, the guys come out on the short end of the stick. For example, I haven’t had any luck since my ex dumped me and she’s had at least two boyfriends in the interim.

As someone who doesn’t believe in much religious or spiritual, I still use luck to explain things. That’s just because I think a lot of things are random, and if you ever study randomness you see it doesn’t look random. Consequently, you can’t tell whether things are going your way or not. I use this to explain a situation I heard about lately, where “someone” was stopped for drinking and driving, and the cop just told him to park it and gave him a ride home to an adjacent city. If it were me, I would probably have been shipped to Guantanamo Bay and deported, even though I am a citizen of these United States of America. And that’s my luck.

OK, so what loot am I going to score this holiday season?

I returned my only Christmas present (from my sister) already. She got it online from Sears, and it wasn’t sent as a gift, so I had to get it back per their return policy. I turned a laser level into a boring gift certificate that goes bad in two years if I forget about it. As I was putting it back in the box, I got a nasty cardboard paper-cut that bled like an SOB.

The worst part about returning the laser level was going to the (unnamed) mall during the holiday season. It was almost as bad as walking down 23rd Avenue, which I had to do because my dad ran out of pipe tobacco. I kept bumping into tourists on 23rd Avenue. (Anyone with an umbrella in Portland is a tourist.)

The (unnamed) mall is a trash-o-rama. It’s crowded and everybody looks like they were kicked out of K-Mart. And the most frightening thing was seeing the women coming out of Victoria’s Secret. If anyone needed huge grandma underwear, it was the women walking out of that store.

So I’m being accused of malingering, eh?

Well, yesterday, I was pooped. I took a two-hour nap in the afternoon and still went to sleep at 9:30. I still don’t feel quite right. Perhaps it’s because of my high white blood cell count, perhaps not. You’d figure they could take my blood and culture whatever it is that’s growing in there that’s causing my white cell count to go up. But like I keep repeating, I’m not a doctor.

In any case, I’m pooped. I can counter that by drinking enough that I don’t remember I’m pooped, but that requires that I get out of the house. And i don’t feel like getting out of the house because I’m pooped. Heh.

Well, pooped people don’t make for interesting bloggers. I can tell you about setting up ssh keys and watching three back-to-back episodes of “Law and Order: SVU.” I’d really rather watch some stuff get blowed up. What good is “Spike TV” if they don’t constantly show Steven Seagal movies?

I wonder how much a bone marrow biopsy hurts.

After calling four times and waiting two days, I finally got a call back from my doctor. I guess he wasn’t working today, and called me from home. It’s a good thing he called, too, since I got a bunch of forms from Northwest Cancer Specialists. Kind of a surprise. A couple of forms, a bunch of pamphlets, and a card with an appointment scheduled. I guess he scheduled an appointment for me with the hematologist once the results from the second blood test came back looking odder than the first. And I thought the laser level was a disappointment.

The good news: it’s probably not leukemia. The test didn’t indicate that.

The bad news: I may get a bone marrow biopsy. From what I hear, that could really hurt, and I can’t think how how it would help.

People keep asking, “What’s wrong?” How would I know? They didn’t let me into medical school.

Waiting and waiting and waiting.

If I was paranoid, I’d think my doctor was getting me back for not being around when he called yesterday. I called in the morning and spent the whole day waiting for him to call back. And I am paranoid, but I also know that it’s busy at that office. If I were important, though, I’d get a call back.

Anyway, I sat around waiting for my doctor to call. I called his office in the morning, and the person I talked to mumbled, “Should have an appointment this week… Dr. Segal… December 16… 3PM…” Then she said, “He’ll have to call you back.” My doctor is not Dr. Segal, by the way, and she could have just told me who the heck he is so I didn’t have to wait.

Also, my sister got me a laser level for Christmas. My sister also thinks I should avoid doing work on the house. So I don’t know what to do besides taking the level back to Sears. I played with it for a second, but if I’m not working on the house I can’t really use it. Hmmm. Now what do I need at Sears?

Well, so today was just fooling around.

Well, I went to a doctor appointment (as an interpreter) and my ma seems OK. I also took her to get her picture taken and she may be in an ad for the Oregon Lottery. The rest of the day, I spent running errands with my friend Greg. Unfortunately, I saw a bunch of horses at one point, too, and one of them tried to take a bite out of Greg’s daughter Bridget. I don’t like horses at all. Bridget, the one who was bit, loves the things.

I also found out that my second blood test was probably also anomalous, so I get to see a specialist. I’ve had someone explain the lab results (a friend of my sister’s) and I’m guessing it means I’ve got some sort of infection somewhere.

But what do I know? They wouldn’t let me into medical school.

Someone has a case of the Mondays.

Oh, what a joy some days are.

  • In trying to hit my alarm clock, I knocked something on my head.
  • Getting out of bed, I stuck my foot in a cardboard box I had on the floor.
  • I got outside and it was raining even though all the weather reports said it was supposed to be nice. (This is nothing an Oregonian should complain about.) However, I had to walk two block to my car since it was street cleaning day and we had to have our cars off certain streets.
  • I got to go to the doctor, who told me there was all sorts of odd things with my blood count, so they had to poke another hole in my arm.
  • When I got back to my car, I noticed that my bumper was screwed up. The spot I parked in last night (away from the house because of the street cleaning) was in a large pile of leaves. It was the best open spot I could find. A neighbor later told me she thought there was concrete under the leaves.

I removed the outer bottom piece of plastic, sawed it into pieces, and stuck in the garbage. It’s not like I can afford to get it fixed.

I can’t believe the yuppies gentrifying the neighborhood and leaving their crap out in the street for jobless schmucks like me to hit. It’s bad enough that the guy probably raked all his leaves off of his property and out in front of his house for the street cleaner. I, on the other hand, accept the leaves that fall on the property. If it’s out in the street, it’s a present for the city.

Hearing that I might be sick just makes me exhausted, so I took a long nap and got nothing done once again.

How many days in a row can I go to the hospital?

I think there are weeks that I go to Providence Hospital or the attached clinic twice a week. Last week I went to get my blood checked and went to interpret for my mom. So that made twice last week.

This week I have to go in for myself once and with my mom once. Today we got a call that an old family friend was in the hospital for cancer treatments. We went to visit him so I’ll be at the hospital three days in a row. Knock on wood, everyone will come out of this OK.

The family friend didn’t want anyone to know he was ill, and was kind of upset that people knew and were visiting him. He’s a small local legend, and has his name on a plaque for being a regular of a local bar for over 40 years.

This restaurant has an “Other” menu with more obscure Chinese dishes, and also has “American Fried Chicken” (sort of like Shake and Bake) and pork chops. The family friend let me know about those two menu items that I’ve never seen on the menu.