This has got to have been one of the longest weeks in history.  After being off for two weeks, one of which was spent in the hospital, the other at home recuperating, working a full week and then off for another week; it’s been difficult for me to get myself out of bed and off to work.  Motivation has been the key.  With only .086 hours of PTO (Paid Time Off) I pretty much have to go to work or else I don’t get paid and with that the possibility of being disciplined is pretty much been my motivation to go to work.

The whole month of May was pretty much filled up with doctor’s appointments.  With the fact that I knew that I was going to take off a week in June, I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time left over for a cushion just in case I had some medical issues or one of my kids or wife, for that matter, got sick.  Not knowing that I myself would have to go back into the hospital for the flu and pneumonia didn’t help matters any. So, with that thought in mind I would always work over to make up for any time that I had to take off for a doctor’s appointment.  Made for a very long month.  Anyway, one of the doctor’s appointments was with a neurophysiologist. Not by my choice but my employers. It seems that my boss wanted me to go because of some mistakes that I’ve been making at work.  Some of these mistakes were quite costly but luckily none were any danger to me or to my co workers.   The appointment lasted for four hours and I failed several tests miserably.  I talked to the doctor that performed the tests the next day and he told me that I had some sort of mental disability.  He did not give me the diagnoses but told me that he would file a report and give it to my general practitioner.  It’s been over a month and I’m still waiting for the results to come in.  Another test that was performed was done while I was home recuperating.  It was an appointment to check my feet.  I spent two hours getting my feet shocked only for them to tell me what I already knew, Diabetic Neuropathy.

Back to the mental disability.  With being diagnosed with CML and taking a form of chemotherapy, I’ve been told, not by doctors but by other people to look into Chemobrain. Personally, I don’t think I have this because I haven’t had a bone marrow transplant.  But I do have most of the symptoms though.  I have noticed that my short term memory is not as good as it used to be and while I can remember some things deep in my childhood other memories during that same time frame I can’t remember at all.  At first I just counted it as getting old but after losing several arguments with the wife I have come to the realization that maybe it’s not just about getting old any more.  And with the current result from the neurophysiologist I tend to agree that I do have some sort of mental issues.  What can be done about it remains to be seen.

A bit of good news is that while I was away on vacation my oncologist called me with the results of my last set of tests.  It seems that my Bcr-Abl tests came back any my numbers were a whole lot lower.  In his words, “the numbers bottomed out”.  He didn’t give me the exact numbers but he did say that they have not been any lower since my diagnosis.  I can’t wait to go back in two weeks to see what the numbers actually are.

With all that’s happening in my life right now, especially with my health, my friends are all concerned that I would try to end it all.  I’m not sure as to why they feel this way.  I’ve never given them any cause for concern in that area.  At least I don’t think so.  All I know, there is no way there is any possibility of that ever happening.  If someone even remotely suggests that I committed suicide someone better be on the lookout for a murderer.  I’ve got too much to live for right now for me to commit something cowardly as that.