Sprung.

So. I've been sprung.

Most of the past 24 hours was spent on the portable EKG unit and waiting for my heart ultrasound (ECO). It's always nice to be back in 7South, it's a peaceful place where the nurses are very much like family. It's funny, Nancy wasn't even my nurse for my abbreviated stay, but she still kept checking in to chat and give me updates on my blood work. It sounds like she may have even recommended getting the ECO ultrasound.

It's hard to not feel guilty for occupying a bed that somebody else may need just for my monitoring - but if I have a choice, its the only floor I'm staying on.

Back to me. After the Nuclear Medicine studies, the ECO and the 24 hour cardiac surveillance - my heart is strong. I still have to check back with them in a couple weeks but all parties involved seem to think its a mixture of anxiety, dramatic changes in my blood chemistry and possibly a touch of my medication. They're probably right - but I tend to think its a little more Gleevec than they do. I've been doing my own informal study and feel like most of my cardiac events (palpitations, irregular beats, PVCs, etc) are almost exactly 8 hours after I take my meds. My study doesn't tell me why - but I can only assume that it may be the time when the Gleevec is at its highest concentration in my body. Most mornings I feel better which would fit my hypothesis since the half-life of the drug is about 18 hours.

In short, I'm home...and apparently heart healthy.

Blood work is stabilizing (in a good way), though there are still some numbers that need some work (specifically some of my clotting and platelet numbers). This can take months so I'm in it for the long haul. They started printing out my chemistry sheets for me and it has historical data on it. It is really interesting, but required me to spend about two hours on the Internet trying to find out what the hell all the acronyms are. I'm told it gets even more complicated once we start seeing cellular changes. Then its about percentages, chromosomes, log reductions, and more.

I feel OK now - but its much easier to relax at the hospital when you know you have an emergency button 2 feet away. For now - I'm going to try and keep my mind clear and get good rest. It's an amazing time to live with Leukemia (CML) which just 10 years ago yielded a 3 year life expectancy.

It's time to live the only way I know how - Large.

The Real Sunday.

You'll actually see that I have two posts from today. The first one was just kinda recap of the past three weeks - this one, will wow you with current events and what's been going on for the past 24 hours.

So...its no secret that Gleevec is a miracle drug for some forms of leukemia (mine specifically). I've been on it for about 15 days now. Early on, the only side effect I felt was a little nausea. That has subsided, but some more troublesome one's have popped up. First and foremost - I will say that the Gleevec is really knocking my white cells back to a normal level (I hit 9,000 last night, woot!). This is really just a small percentage of what it does and it can take a very, very long time to see a cytogenic response.

Over the past couple days, it seems that I've been a bit short of breath. More often than not - it occurs just about 8 hours after taking my meds. Last night - again, about 8 hours post Gleevec - I started feeling an irregular heartbeat. I waited about 30 minutes and decided I better head to the ER.

One of the few benefits of having Leukemia is that you get fast tracked at the ER. I had my vitals and was in a room in about 15 minutes. From there they did an EKG (normal by that time), blood work, CT Scan and Xray. Some of the more serious side effects of Gleevec can be fluid retention around the lungs and heart so I wasn't going to risk it. Luckily for me - most everything came back OK and the blood work revealed that I was down to 9,000 on my white count. I did have an elevated level on some sort of clotting test which is why they ran the CT just to make sure it didn't turn out to be some sort of embolism. Prior to this - they mentioned that the Hematoma in my leg being reabsorbed could also affect that number.

So I'm home now, and poor Kristin is along for the ride. The fear of something bigger going on in my body unfortunately occupies my mind too much and may even increase the severity of my symptoms. For me though - its just something I have to go through. For Kristin, she has to maintain her daily life and essentially become a single parent while I get better. It's got to be so much more difficult to be the witness than the patient.

I love her for this and so much more.

Day Whatever.

As advised by my wife, Kristin - I should have started this blog on the day I was diagnosed. Chances are I would have remembered a lot more and would have had a pretty darn good journal of my health over the past couple weeks.

Here's the short story.

1. Calf got big.
2. Went to ER.
3. Checked for clot - none found
4. Treated as Cellulitis.
5. Condition remained the same, checked for clot again.
6. Primary Care doc sent me to OrthoIndy.
7. Ortho ordered MRI, Xray and blood.
8. MRI showed large Hematoma in my right calf.
9. Blood work show elevated white cells (185,000)
10. Directed to go back to ER, do not pass go.
11. Secondary blood test confirmed ridiculously high white count.
12. Panic ensued.
13. Later that day was a the recipient of a bone marrow test (ouch).
14. By 7p that day, I had the diagnosis of Chronic Myelognous Leukemia.
15. Was then told I was lucky and that CML is very treatable.
16. Started treatment on Gleevec, thank you Novartis.
17. Having some side effects from the Gleevec, kinda scary.
18. So there - now you're up to speed.