Baldies' Blog began originally in the UK by a 26 year old journalist with a blood cancer on a mission to inform the world about bone marrow donation.

He has since died, and I took on the cause of making cancer care more transparent for everybody.

Cancer is a disease that will touch everybody through diagnosis or affiliation: 1 in 2 men will be diagnosed and 1 in 3 woman will hear those words, "You Have Cancer."

I invite you to read how I feel along my journey and
how I am continuing to live a full life alongside my Hodgkin's lymphoma, with me controlling my cancer, not my cancer controlling me.

I hope that "Baldies' Blog" will prepare you to handle whatever life sends you, but especially if it's the message, "You Have Cancer."

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Monday, November 24, 2008

Twin Telepathy

Heather’s twin telepathy has been on overdrive recently.
Yes, twins do share a special bond that is incredibly difficult for others to understand.
Heather called this morning, minutes after I woke up, saying “I was just calling to see if you were doing okay?” She asked, in that voice, the one that says she KNOWS something.
“I was just lying in bed wishing someone was here to make me breakfast so I didn’t have to get up.”
“Oh, well I was just a little short of breath, and my chest started to hurt. I was worried I was having a heart attack but then I thought it was you.”
Okay, okay, okay. No lying to Heather. She all ready knows.
She always already knows, maybe not the extent, maybe not the whole truth, but she has an idea and she’s going to ask questions until I confess.
My chest does ache, my rib cage. It’s a little uncomfortable to inhale. I have been having some pain in my chest, it just feels really full, it hurts like chostochondritis, NOT A HEART ATTACK.
Not that I know what a heart attack feels like, but I’ve heard it described enough.
I’m happy that we can share my pain. I think it takes some of the pressure off me.
Heather knew the day I got pregnant so that was the day the phone calls started, “Hill, what’s been going on? Has anything changed?”
I didn’t even know I was pregnant yet.
Anyway, I confessed to my sister that I don’t feel well. I feel downright nasty. I hurt all over. I’m coughing up junk, and sometimes I can hear wheezes, audible across the room.
I’ve been medicating myself for these problems.
I have my own little pharmacy in my bathroom: Kytril, ativan, and marinol to stop throwing up. I have ginger ale in the fridge and I’ve been eating a lot of toast. Then I have my tussionex (a cough suppressant) and some ambient.
I do have augmentin to take, prescribed on my way out of the hospital.
Praise Jesus I did not wait and try to fight my symptoms myself. We’ll never know what my sickness would have progressed to if I did.
I’d rather be complaining about some pain and nausea than be silenced up in the ICU on a vent.
Heather had an idea I might be medicating myself.
What I really want is some steroids.
I never thought those words would ever come out of my mouth, but I’d really like to stop my lungs from wheezing, get an iron stomach and not be nauseas and throw up, and have some energy.
I’d like to order all those things please, just one of each will be fine.
I’ll be posted up in bed all day with my meds and lots of water. Heather has reassured herself that I will be fine. She’ll call back at lunch, or at any other time I start to feel badly.
Happy Monday people. I made you a video, but I can’t find the connector wires to download it. Either way, Happy holidays.

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