Justin...Leukemia...who would have thought?

So here I sit, I am here in my single bed hospital room. It sounds depressing, it kind of is, but on the other side of things it`s something that has to be lived through, who said having a disease was an easy thing. Yes, I have a disease, it is still weird saying that... I have leukemia, one that is most common in children and young adults. The technical name is actually ALL(acute lymphoblastic lymphoma), for those of you who aren`t doctors, it is a blood disorder, really a Cancer of bone marrow. For people who have ALL, their marrow is producing abnormal white blood cells that eventually, if left untreated, will start to take over the all normal blood cells, including the red ones. In my case my red counts and normal white cells were down, reducing the amount of oxygen getting to the rest of the cells in my body and increasing my chances of infection. I was showing signs of abnomal fatigue, especially when participating in sports and other physical activities, even climbing the stairs had become more of a challenge. For me, fatigue is something very hard to deal with, usually I am fairly active and don`t like to sit still, so being stuck in a hospital room... It`s definately not one of my favorite places to be, but like I said before, I have to be here if I expect to get better and be able to do all of the things I love again.
The treatments have been going well, although I will not know the results until after the last chemo session is finished which is December 5. I expected chemo to be a lot harder than it has been, not to say it has all been fun. The first couple of days were tough, lots of needles. I had to get lots of testing done, so I had a sample of my hip bone taken (they freeze you and then kind of drill out a small cilindrical piece of bone, as well as a sample of blood from inside the bone). I also had an intrathecal injection and sample taken (a needle is injected between two of the back vertebrae and a sample of the spinal fluid taken, as well as an injection of Methotrexate, which is a chemo meant to kill the abnormal Leukemic cells that may have started to collect within the spinal cord and up into the skull.) I also got a PICC line inserted into of of the veins in my left arm (it is a tube that starts in my upper left arm and goes straight into one of the veins and extends inside my body underneath my armpit and near to my heart, although it sounds a bit gross, it is actually one of my better add on features. It allows all the bags of IV drip, chemo therapies, and medication to go straight into my body and not have to have one of those rather large needles jammed into my wrist of hand every time. My blood can also be draw straight from my line so I don`t have very many needles anymore which is nice.)These were not really painful, just awkward, well ok a bit painful... I won`t act tough. Three other intramuscular injections were placed in both arms and my butt. I have had more needles in two weeks than in all of my life put together, but I guess it is to be expected. The first Sunday I was here every chemo was given to me over the course of the day, each having different side effects, just to say I wasn`t feeling top notch at this point. I was receiving Benadryll to relieve the nausea that the other chemos were causing and was not able to eat much, if any of the awesome hospital food. The nausea continued for about three or four days. I hate nausea, it is one of the worst feeling in the world. My stomach muscles had also received a bit of a work out, I guess that is one good thing about vommitting, your losing weight from not eating and your pumping the muscles... Now that I think back that was a good work out, but next time hopefully it is not so intense. My last treatment went really well, it was only a bag of Vincristine that took fifteen minutes on my IV line, it`s side effects are not so harsh, constipation (which is hard, literally), but I have some creams to use for the hemmoroids it caused... and I am giving way too much information here. Hair loss is also a side effect for many of the treatments, but so far I am still the tall, blue eyes,blonde I have been for a while, my hair is fairly long and I have a `beard` growing right now, so I will look very manegy if all of a sudden my hair starts falling out, which apparently it starts coming off in clumps once it does decide to fall. My next treatment will be the same thing, which happens Sunday again. Monday is a different story, I will have another (my second) intrathecal injection which is know to, and probably will again, cause me to have fever, nausea and vommitting. Hopefully it doesn`t, I will not hold my breath, but like before I will make it through.
As for my morale, I have been staying very positive, it can be hard to at times, but I just don`t think about my situation as being so bad... It could be so many times more worse than this, which I am very thankful for. So many people have it way worse than me. I am in one of the best hospitals in Canada, have world renound doctors helping me out, awesome nurses (which I hardly see anymore because I am doing so well.) My mom has been with me everyday (she`s determined to ride out the time with me,) my sister was here for a while, but had to get back to school. My dad will be here with my brother in about a week, I think they are both anxious to see me, as everyone at home is as well. It is amazing how much love and support one person can have behind them, it almost hard for me to understand how people can care so much about someone, it`s a weird feeling, but it gets you through, especially when you don`t think you can last. I know there will hard days throughout this experience, but it is those people backing you that will stand you back up on your feet and push you to keep moving, carrying you if they have to. I feel very secure, even if I do not know what the outcome of my chemo therapy will be, I have so much lifting me up there is no way I`m going down!

I hope that anyone who reads this finds it informative, I want people to know what is going on with me, I am so far away that I know everyone has a lot of concern. But no matter how far away I am, I can still feel the love and support from everyone. It`s like a stream of light radiating all the way to my hospital room in the big city of Montreal. So thank you to everyone for everthing you have done for me, I don`t know how I will ever be able to repay you!

I will make it through this mess in no time, love Justin