Daily Archives: February 13, 2014

Day 1

13 Thursday Feb 2014

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I titled this as “Day 1” because this is the first day as being diagnosed as having CML, Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia.  

This day started off crazy.  Last night and into early this morning we got over 4 inches of snow.  Roads were closed and almost all business were closed, including my Oncologist.  My appointment was at 9:30 am and I started calling around 8 am to see if they were going to be seeing any patients today.  To make a long story short, I was finally able to make an appointment for 2 pm today.

Due to the snow all the schools were closed and my wife was able to go to the appointment with me.  The doctor sat us down and was very through.  He went line by line and explained everything to us.  He answered all our questions and made sure we understood.  He had a since of urgency when he spoke and he knew without asking that I was deeply concerned with my health. 

Several years ago this type of Leukemia was quite fatal.  The survival rate was only three to five years.  Now the survival rate is much higher with a 95 percent rate. I’m not liking the “L” word but if I had to choose which one I wanted I think this one would be it.  A pill taken twice a day is not a cure but it will control the spread if they have caught it in time.  We shall know this answer come Monday.  I have a bone marrow biopsy Monday morning and this should tell me which stage I’m in.

If you are a praying person, I’d like for you to spend a moment or two saying a prayer not for me but for my wife and kids.  I have a set of twin daughters, 16 yrs old and a 20 year old son who are taking this pretty hard.  

TH

 

 

 

Complete Shut Down

13 Thursday Feb 2014

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Once again snow has completely shut down one of the largest cities in Alabama, I got just over four inches of snow here while others north and east of us got upwards around seven plus inches.  Cities south of me only got anywhere from a dusting to one inch.  

It’s funny though that one inch of snow can shut this place down.  As I’ve stated in an earlier post, we are just now equipped to handle it.  Other cities north of us has salt trucks that go out and prep the roads before the snow starts falling.  We have sand trucks.  Two different things.  Salt helps to melt the snow and sand only helps get traction and usually makes for a messy vehicle after the snow is gone.  

Birmingham doesn’t see much snow.  I’m 50 years old and the most I’ve ever seen is 18 inches in March of 1993 and the city was shut down for over a week.  Temps stayed below freezing for most of the week and the snow never melted.  We lost power for the week and had no emergency power.  We do now.  We had to heat and cook our food out of our fireplace.  We took all of our perishables and put them on the deck and covered it up with snow so that we wouldn’t loose most of our food.  All of our meet and such we put in the bath tub and covered everything with snow.  That worked pretty well. We even had a water bed at the time.  Do you know what happens when you have no power on a water bed?  It get’s so cold you can’t sleep on it.  Luckily, we had a fold out couch that my wife and I slept on.  Did I mention she was GREAT with child?  I was worried the whole time we were stuck in our house thinking that she was going to go into labor.  Thank the good Lord above she didn’t.

Temps should warm up quickly tomorrow morning and the snow should start to melt early on. Either I go to my doctor appointment or I end up going to work tomorrow.  My guess is my appointment will be postponed and work will open around 10 am in the morning.  Either way I won’t be able to stay home and enjoy the snow with my girls.  I can’t really afford to take more time until I find out what is going on with my blood work.

Take care everyone and have a blessed day.