Well, I guess I’m OK.

The day started out with a trip to Adecco to see about temp jobs, specifically warehouse jobs. But I did end up taking the “Secretary II” assessment, that included a Meyers-Briggs-like questionnaire, some grammar/spelling questions, and a typing test. I think I did OK, but it’s hard to know. And I had to fill in another online “résumé”.

I made a trip to my doctor and had these few questions scribbled down on the back of an envelope.

So, what I found out was that I’m in the very early chronic stage of chronic myelogenous leukemia. My white blood cell count is about 20,000 (of mysterious units I forgot to ask about). To me that sounds nice and low.

I shouldn’t see any symptoms yet, and problems I’ve been having (poor sleep, etc) are due to reasons other than CML. I don’t sleep well in the winter to begin with. So all my worrying was for naught.

I don’t have any dietary restrictions, and even the instructions the pharmacist printed out, “DO NOT take any other medications …” isn’t a big problem.

And the office called my sister about getting HLA typing to see if she can be a bone marrow donor for me.

Andiamo!


I called about my broken cell phone yesterday, and they told me they’d ship me a new one for a $35 deductible in two to three days. Well, it only took a day. But another punishment for using my insurance is a larger phone. Since my atrophied electronic skills have most likely narrowed the culprit to a dying battery, and because the batteries are identical in both phones, I could have just used the new battery in the old phone. Alas, I activated the new phone, so now I have a new, larger albatross to carry with me.