What now?

I am a sensitive person, physically, mentally, emotionally, psychologically.  I can feel a 1 degree change in indoor temperature. I don't wear clothes with tags.   No wool.  Ever.  I am allergic to virtually all animals, foods, trees, grasses, dusts, scents, etc.  Always have been.

When I was younger, I would feel things in my body, Google them, make an appointment with a doctor, spend a sleepless night planning my end of life,  then learn from my doctor that I did not have any serious affliction. 

Beginning in November 2021, everything changed.  Since then, most everything I fear actually warrants fear.  The pain in my back is dreadful but at least it's not cancer.   It's cancer.  The type of Myeloma I have can't be high risk.  Yes, it's high risk.  At least I'm not neutropenic.  Of course I am. Hypogammaglobulenemia? Yep.

When I was first diagnosed with Myeloma, I remember walking down the main street in my town and looking at everyone around me.  How lucky they are not to be sick.  Not to have to worry about the side effects of the medicines that they are taking.  How lucky they are to be healthy and to feel the sun and the beauty of this day without feeling like there was a problem that might change their life dramatically.  I was not envious or jealous at all.  I felt sad that I had been them a week ago and I did not realize how lucky I was.  

I just ask a favor.   Please enjoy everything in this day.  Enjoy the sun. The rain.  Enjoy your tea.  Enjoy your friends, work colleagues, the fact that you have health insurance.   Enjoy your children if you have them, your other family or friends if you don't.   Enjoy doing laundry and watering your plants and putting your children's shoes away.  These are the simple privileges of a healthy life.  💜

healingmyeloma@gmail.com

PRESS THE SMALL WHITE ARROW AT THE TOP LEFT OF THE PAGE FOR THE NEXT BLOG POST. 

 




 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Carpe Diem

My once strong, fun and beautiful mother sits up in her peach nightgown and declares "I think that the best years of my life were at the lake."  My parents came home one 1980 s weekend and announced that they had purchased a house on a lake near Middlebury, VT.  I grew up in a town with a beach and I did not understand the value of a lake.   This house was a wonderfully exciting way to learn.  It was an annex to an inn, so it had six bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms overlooking the biggest lake within Vermont's borders.  We each had our own rooms and when we walked into that house all of the stress generated by city life evaporated.    The centerpiece of the lake, that looks and feels very much like Lake Como to me, is Neshobe Island, the summer camp of the literati of the 1920s Algonquin Round Table.  Rumors of Dorothy Parker,  Robert Benchley, George S. Kaufman, and Edna Ferber running naked on the island made adults laugh and children...
Read more

Humility and Compassion

It is Chemo Tuesday.  I'm back at the place where I remember I have Myeloma but I am lucky to come in on my own two feet, with all of my hair intact.  This is about the many divides in this country. It causes such profound stress that it may compromise my health.  This is why I am writing about this here. If you are surprised about any of this, you will not want to read what I have to say.  Stop now. I called in to my Congressman's Town Hall last night.  He was eloquent and for an hour there was a verbal tennis match of educated Fairfield County patriots expressing incredulity and frustration and the Congressman lobbed back measured and thoughtful responses.   Of discussion was the $880 m that the richest man in the world was trying to cut from Medicaid;  money that kept poor and sick people able to go to the doctor.   Discussion of the shocking, pathetic minor league interaction on Signal. Honestly, the Secretary of Defense sounded like...
Read more

The Good Supplements

I am an auditory learner.  I cannot read a map but if someone tells me "go left for 3/4 of a mile then take the second right, then the next right thereafter and you will find it on the left side of the street about 700 feet ahead" I will easily find my destination.   I read/listen to about 85 books a year, about 45 of which are non-fiction.  I read a lot about eating healthier food, sleeping better, getting more sun, less plastic,  improving posture, lengthening my telomeres, etc.    I have read many pretentious books on how to live forever.  I can't wait until this hype ends.  I've read a few good and simple ones.  My favorite health book of 2024 was Casey Means' book Good Energy .  It was very simple.  It explained what to eat, what not to eat, how to store food/water, whether to drink (or not), how much sleep, sun, peace, love, alcohol, vacation we should have.  Keep a diary and bad habits are easier to spot and then fi...
Read more