This is dumb! (The day I found out)

Saturday
Day 2 in the hospital
4th journaling entry (the last journal entry pre-blog)

September 2, 2017

More blood work at 5:30am. Not going back to sleep now. I had the hardest time falling asleep last night. I finally put on my comfy sweats and that must have worked, because next thing I know, they’re waking me up for blood.

Hoping for some news today.

Another CT Scan today. Sinus/ throat area. All clear but maybe a small infection in my throat, maybe strep. They took a throat swab and started me on antibiotics.

Zach and boys came in this morning. He brought me coffee with MY creamer (I’m so picky with creamers, right now, Almond Milk vanilla cream. YUM!) and a donut. I hate hospital food. (Lucky for me, my hospital has like 1000 good food options around it, so I can convince any and all visitors to bring me something yummy!) Seriously, why can’t it at least have the appearance of home-cooked. I would rather eat food from the school cafeteria, at least they are in this century of healthy food options. In-laws stopped by too. They took the boys so Zach could spend the day with me.

Everyone has to wear a mask (neutropenic precautions).

Dr. S (the hematology doctor) came in this afternoon.

It’s cancer.

It’s likely AML. This is the good leukemia to get.

It’s likely APML (AML M3). This is even better. If you are going to get leukemia, get the AML M3 type she says.

Since they are suspecting M3, they are starting me on chemo pills (Tretinoin) today. I’ll take 4 pills 2 times a day. If they find that it’s not M3 and it’s another AML then they will just stop the pills, no harm done. If it’s AML then we’ll continue the pills and add in an IV chemo. This will mostly like happen on Tuesday (holiday weekend and all).

Yes, I’m going to lose my hair. Zach and I will be twins. It feels very Conehead movie to me.

Zach walked the halls with me (he gets a break from the mask, I have to put one on) after we got the official news that it is indeed cancer. I’m most of the time good. For one second, I almost cried. I could feel it coming. All I could say was, “This is dumb!”

But, yes, overall I feel good. Google seems to tell me that it’s like a 90% remission rate. Remission, that’s the word right? Seriously, I know nothing about cancer. I feel like I’ll be learning quite a bit over the next few weeks/months.

I’m likely going to be in the hospital for at least 2 weeks. Netflix binge, here I come.

Will update again soon.
Love & Light.
😷😘 michelle