Adrienne's first lost tooth

I was at a meeting tonight and I missed Adrienne losing her first tooth. She has been so excited about losing the tooth. Mommy wrapped dental floss around the tooth and yanked it out. Adrienne didn't cry but was thrilled.

Moving pain

Now the pain has moved from my back into my upper shoulder. It hurts constantly. The pain is interfering with my work. I am finding it difficult to concentrate on work. The muscles in my shoulder are spasming.

I took 2 hydrocodone to help with the pain and now I feel pretty drowsy but the pain is still noticeable. It isn't a sharp pain but a dull constant pain.

Physical Wreck

Four days ago I went to see my Financial Advisor who was having an open house. I chatted with him and drank a very small glass of red wine. He had a massage therapist set up so I got one of those chair massages. This was last Thursday.

Friday I woke up with some pretty substantial pain deep in the right side of my upper trapezoids or possibly in the muscle underneath that the serratus posterior superior. I rode my bike 50 miles on Saturday without it hurting to much. At this stage it just hurt when moved certain ways.

Yesterday it really fucking hurt- even when I was sitting completely still it still hurts. It is noticeable all the time. Now the pain seemed to have moved to the right some into my shoulder (deltoid) and I am finding it difficult to concentrate at work and I have to prepare for a board meeting tomorrow.

Sucks!!!!

Nothing wrong with me

I went to Duke for an appointment at the Bone Marrow Transplant Center. When you arrive at the front you go into a room before you enter the building. In this room my must wash your hands thoroughly and then put on a mask. The people in the waiting room have either compromised or no immune systems.

The first thing that you do when you check in is to see the Financial Counselor. He sat us down and told me that he had already talked to my case worker at United Healthcare (my health insurance company) and that I was pre-approved for a bone marrow transplant.

What?

I was just there to get checked out and they already had me pegged for a bone marrow transplant. I kind of shook it off.

We then met with the doctor, Mitchell Horowitz, who told me that he thought that I was just taking longer than "textbook" to get over some sort of unknown viral infection. My CT scan showed nothing really abnormal (slight scoliosis and a 5mm cyst on my right kidney) and all my other bloodwork besides my WBC was normal. So he told me to get checked in another 3 months and not to worry about it.

So hopefully all this shit was much to do about nothing. Better to know than not.

Old and Tired

I went bike riding yesterday with my neighbor. I noticed that my heart rate was about ten beats per minute faster than normal for me throughout the entire ride. I just didn't feel up to par. Normally I don't have days like that. That gets me thinking. Did my performance or lack thereof have anything to do with the iodine from the CT scan I had on Friday? Is my issue with my white blood cells contributing?

I have felt kind of lethargic and out of energy today. Tamara had rotator cuff surgery on Thursday and thank goodness her mother and my mother have helped a lot with food and the kids. I had the kids all day by myself today so, my bother and his family met me at the Catawba Science Center today, we ate lunch and then went bowling. I just felt tired all day.

I have a doctor appointment at Duke Hospital this coming Thursday to see if someone can tell me what the hell is going on with my immune system. It sure would be nice to have some answers. To be honest it is pretty damn scary. I don't know whether I have some rare form of cancer or if it is something far more benign. Besides being a little more tired than normal, I feel pretty damn good.

My Bone Marrow Biopsy and Aspiration and subsequent diagnosis

Ok, so the Oncologist performed a bone marrow biopsy on me about on February 3. That was none too fun but it wasn't really all that bad. They made me lay on my stomach and they gave me a local in my back around my left hip bone. After it was numb enough he used a tool that essentially cut and removed a core of my bone and bone marrow. Tamara watched him do it and said it looked pretty severe. Apparently the tool looks like a wine cork screw and he really had to bear down on it while turning to get the sample. It was mildly painful and was over pretty quickly. There were really only two times that I felt a good bolt of pain.

I had another appointment with the Oncologist today to get the results. The lab that analyzed my bone marrow printed a multi page report that is very technical and I suspect that an Oncologist would be the only one to really understand it.

My diagnosis is as follows:

Atypical CD8+ T cells with aberrant immunophenotypes (17% of total cells) and atypical natural killer cell lymphocytosis (23% of total cells) are present

My Oncologist said that this is pretty rare and that it is beyond what he is willing to attempt to treat. He has referred me to a doctor at Duke University Hospital.

This is pretty damn scary. The report is extremely complicated and inconclusive about malignancy. What is amounts to is that I am freak of nature and have some strange rare condition that may or may not be benign. I just hope that someone at Duke can start to determine what the hell is going on with my immune system.

The funny thing is that I feel great and don't have any symptoms of anything that would point to problems.

We will wait and see.....

A Reminder

I had a meeting tonight and got home after the kids were asleep. I turned off all the lights left on in the house and then checked in on the sleeping children. There is something about my children sleeping. I stood over Adrienne and London as they slept and it reminded me why I live. My life is for them. I exist, I breathe, I survive only for my children. I have never known real love until they became part of my life.

Everything else doesn't matter. Only my family is of true significance.