surmising with aplomb and nary remorse
You may be happy or sad over the reelection of Barack Obama. I, for one, am happy. You may be happy or sad over the reelection of the Congressional Incumbents. I, for one, am sad. And, you may be happy or sad over the historic legalization of gay marriage in Maryland and other states and … Read more
Video courtesy of the National Institute of Health
Courtesy of the National Institute of Health. Click on the image for information on the disease.
Back in February of this year, I posted the following gripe to my personal facebook page (as opposed to my public facebook page): I am fortunate to have a rather decent long-term disability policy with Mutual of Omaha, which I, thankfully, purchased through my former employer prior to the diagnosis of my cancer. One of … Read more
One of prednisone’s most annoying side-effects are severe mood swings. When I woke up each morning, I always had to wonder who I would be that day. Would I be one who was effusively overcome with happiness and joy? Or, would I be one who was trapped in a deep, dark depression? Or, would I be a paranoid, hypersensitive mad–as in angry at any little slight–man?
Without even mentioning my slowly deteriorating and dying lungs, it’s bad enough that I have lost most of the feeling in my lower extremities due to the neuropathy that was brought on by all the chemo I got juiced up with to treat my leukemia, or that I lost most of my ability to smell or to taste to only our tight-lipped God know why (my doctors sure as hell don’t know), but, because of the reemergence of GVHD due to my decrease in prednisone dosage, do I really need to now start losing my ability to see, as well?
Do you think I really would have been able to pursue my life-long love of writing as aggressively as I am doing now had I not become stricken with cancer and then a chronic, debilitating lung disease?
I think not…
And I don’t know about you, but for me, even sometimes at my old and calloused age, and no matter how times that old, dull saw “there’s no such thing as a stupid question” is drawn back and forth across my grainy, knot-holed brain, if I feel stupid about asking a question before I even ask it, then it is really hard for me to get up the gumption to get the stupid question out.
I had yellow florescent DayGlo-looking crap leaking out of my eyes all day long. I looked like some jaundiced mutant. In fact, couple my yellow jaundiced-looking eyes with my big ol’ pumpkin head and I looked like I could have starred in one of Maurice Sendak’s books.
My recent appointment with my GVHD specialist was one of the most informative appointments I have had yet. Even though not all of the information was good, it all brought clarity to my treatment and came with a decisiveness of purpose. The good news is…