In July, I had a bump on the back of my head. Probably a bug bite, right? I was a busy mom and blew it off. It started to swell over several days and really hurt. I went to the doctor. My general practitioner at the time wasn't in the office so I had to go to her partner. He looked at the bump on my head and declared it to be a lymph node that was inflamed. I wasn't convinced because I didn't think that there were lymph nodes located in the scalp on the top of your head. But, he's the doctor, so I went with it. Besides, he gave me an antibiotic and it cleared up. Probably just an infected bug bite that got out of control because I was always so tired because I had three little boys that ran me ragged. That was July.
August begins with me realizing that my teaching and my guidance counselor licenses both were up for renewal and somehow I'd have to get those renewed while I was not actually working in a school setting since I was currently a stay at home mom. Well, God had my back. There was a new counselor at the high school I used to work at. Great! I could mentor her and get my hours for renewal. So most of August I was "working" and fighting a cold most of that time. It was a bad cold. I didn't get sick often but geez, this one was bad. One morning, after two solid weeks of long days at the high school, my neck was terribly painful. I literally could not turn my head. I figured it was because I'd been sitting in front of a computer adjusting students' schedules for several days. It cleared up eventually, but it was the worst muscle pain I'd ever had. Then my shoulder flared up. I'd had some pain in my shoulder for several months but it got extremely painful to the point where I could not raise my arm above my head. So, I went to the dr for the second time in two months. At this point, I'd only been with this doctor for about 2 years and had only seen her for annual physicals. So she was surprised that I was in a second time when her partner had seen me less than a month prior. She said my shoulder was likely sprained and that I shouldn't lift my children until it heals. Yeah. That was unlikely with three children ages 4 and younger. One wasn't even walking yet. That was August.
September begins and I'm still feeling tired, my shoulder hurts and this cold just will not go away. I'm going on 5 weeks of snot and cough and headaches. My husband's grandmother's health was declining rapidly and we knew it was only a matter of time before she would move on to a better place. She left us in mid September. I had just gone back to the doctor for a third time because of the cold that would not give up. She told me I just needed to rest and I was fatigued from being a mom of three young children. I was falling asleep on the sofa at 7pm every night with chills, headache and low grade fever. I wasn't just a "tired mom". I went back to the doctor's office two days later and had to see her partner again who finally decided it was time to do bloodwork. My mother in law was grieving the loss of her mother and was busy planning the funeral arrangements. The dr called me and asked me to come in for further bloodwork. I went right away. He (my dr's partner) told me that my blood "looked like something was going on". He said my "counts were off" but nothing too serious. So he did more bloodwork. Of course I asked for a print out of my results and went home and studied them. Low platelets, low neutrophils, high monocytes and a bunch of things I didn't know about yet. He didn't seem concerned so I tried not to be. The next round of results came in and still more things that weren't quite right. The doctor called for more tests and wanted some previous ones redone. That was the morning of my husband's grandmother's funeral. I already had a sinking feeling in my stomach and knew something was very wrong. I had asked the doctor if he felt that I had leukemia or lymphoma. He said "no, I do not think that is it". He said I was just very anemic. His advice was to set up an appointment with a hematologist to address the anemia. So I did. I had an appointment set up for late October because "it wasn't a serious matter". On the way to the funeral, I saw four billboards advertising a local hospital's cancer treatment center. It's an image that still haunts me. The word cancer seemed to be following me. It was as if God was telling me to pay attention. I sat in the church for the funeral service thinking about how my funeral would be the next one my family would be attending. I remember watching the casket be put into the hearse and sobbing not only for the loss of such a sweet person but also for the reality that I knew I'd be facing. It was the beginning of the hardest time of my life.
The next day, I looked at all of my blood test results online and started to do my own investigating. Maybe I had Mono. Maybe I had a vitamin deficiency. Surely it wasn't truly leukemia or lymphoma. After all, the doctor said it wasn't. I spent the day researching. I even messaged the doctor and asked him again if he felt it was leukemia or lymphoma. No. He felt I was too young and in to good of health. My husband and I went to bed and I decided to take one last look to see if I missed anything. Then I saw something at the bottom of the list of things in my blood. Auer Rods. Huh, I wonder what those are? Dr. Google to the rescue. Turns out that Auer Rods are only present in people that have Acute Myeloid Leukemia. My heart nearly stopped. It was 10:30 at night and I had just diagnosed myself with leukemia. I have two degrees. Neither are in medicine. How did the doctor miss this but I found it? I told Dan that I had leukemia. He wasn't convinced, but I knew. The next morning I called the hematologist that I had made that appointment with for late October. I told her nurse that my bloodwork needed to be looked at right now. The nurse called me back within half an hour and told me to go directly to the hospital for a bone marrow biopsy followed by an appointment with Dr. Klein. It was the first of 18 bone marrow biopsies I'd have over the next two years. As I waited in the waiting room in the dr office, I knew what I had but I had no idea what was going to come of all of it. My husband was in denial and wouldn't believe it until a doctor said it. Well, about an hour later, Dr. Klein said it. She looked at me and said "You have acute myeloid leukemia". I didn't even cry yet. I just asked "now what?". Honestly, I don't recall the exact order of events. Dr. Klein told me I had to chose where to receive treatment. I thought she meant that I had a few days to consider it. No, I had to chose then. Right then. Rush or University of Chicago or NOrthwestern or Loyola. My eyes filled with tears and I asked her where she would go. She said "Loyola". So that's what I chose. Dan left the room to call insurance and start his long road of dealing with them. I sat on the exam table and sobbed. Dr. Klein hugged me and said Loyola was going to do everything those doctors could to help me. My only question for her was "Am I going to die"?" And she responded with 'I hope not". I thanked her for getting me in to see her so fast and asked if I would still be working with her. Her final words to me that day were "I will remember you".
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