Dancing With Cancer Memoirs...Getting An Uneasy Feeling

Well, so my hemoglobin was a bit lower, so what? As soon as my belly healed I'd be good to go. I got a unit of iron transfused, but refused the other two the hematologist wanted me to get. Sorry Doc, can't afford them and I don't have the time, and no I'm not ready for the garden hose up my ass, thanks anyway, bye-bye. Gotta get back to work.

Being interested in herbs, I began thinking what herbs could help my body heal? I remember using Yarrow on a vicious cut on my thumb a few years ago. One day at work (when I worked at a Nature Center) I was fancying myself to be a flintknapper and was knapping a piece of Obsidian (not called volcanic glass for nothing, let me tell you) and my presser flaker slipped and OOWWWW!!!! SON OF A F*%#@!^ BI*#H!!! and more words along those lines. Thankfully I was the only person there at the time, no mothers with their small children. Blood was spurting out wildly; there was blood on the walls, door, computer, ceiling, and lots on the floor. In fact there was so much on the floor, one of those big industrial mops had to be used to mop it all up.

Anyways, I can't get my poor thumb to stop gushing blood so I ran outside, grabbed some Yarrow, crushed it up and placed in on the gash on my thumb. Within minutes the bleeding slowed to a trickle, then stopped. I quickly glued my thumb back together with super glue and tied a splint on my thumb.

So I get some dried Yarrow herb and some Yarrow tincture and start using them, hoping that would stop the bleeding, wherever it was. I began to feel much better, my next CBC test showed no drop in my hemoglobin so great! 9.7 is nothing compared to 3.9. I knew I could live with that.

But then on Sunday night of March 23, 2008, I got violently sick to my stomach. I had gone out to eat Sunday afternoon and thought the sandwich I had gave me a touch of food poisoning. I heaved and hurled and moaned for way too long that night, once again. I valiantly got up the next morning to go to work, but was only able to see one patient. I could barely stand up. I called my boss to tell her there was no way I could work. I felt better the next day, but it took a few days to feel 'normal' again. I swore never to eat at that restaurant again!

Exactly two weeks later, on April 7th, I am violently sick again, only worse. I thought I was in purgatory. I missed two days of work and felt awful the entire week. Now I'm beginning to feel uneasy but I forge ahead. If I don't, the world may end, you know.

Two weeks after that episode, on April 22nd, I'm feeling rather crappy so I go in to see my family doctor for a CBC. He calls me two days later to tell me my hemoglobin is down to 7.6. Well, shit. That's a bit close to critical. So I go back to the hematologist the following Monday, and tell him about my dates with the Porcelain Goddess. I was sure I had an ulcer for my many years of taking handfuls of NSAIDS for fibromyalgia. He orders me to get the two iron infusions I had blown off last month, and this time I agree. I agree to swallow the hose and get an upper endoscopy to see if there was indeed a bleeding ulcer in my stomach. I also take home a fecal blood test, as I confessed to seeing dark areas on my stool. A fecal test done in January was negative (maybe because I ran out of blood?) but in February was positive, however ER doctor ho-hum said it could be hemorrhoids. So I turn in the sample and get the transfusions and get the upper gi done on May 16th.Found out my stool tested positive for blood and my stomach had no ulcers. I once again went in to discuss all this with my hematologist.

And 'just in case' I look into having my body donated to science in case I dropped dead. Doing that is cheaper than a funeral.

By now I was getting a bad feeling...and those dreams I had didn't help any...