Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML) Support Group
Acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), also known as acute myeloid leukemia, is a cancer of the myeloid line of blood cells. Patients with AML usually present with symptoms such as fatigue, bleeding, infection, prompting medical attention. An abnormal blood test reading will then result in further testing in a hospital with a hematologist to determine AML.
My up for today: I'm done with chemo!! 8 treatments of radiation,a clear cerebral spinal fluid sample and a clear bone marrow biopsy are all that stands between me and being able to say "I beat cancer". Soon all my meds will end, my PICC line will be removed and my restrictions lifted and I can focus of recovery and moving forward and hair growing back!
My down for today: I'm so scared. Scared it will return. Scared it will take me from my boys and husband. Scared of a transplant. Scared I won't have a donor and my family will have to watch me die. Scared I can't handle it again. Scared scared scared. Not all days are like this. Most days my faith is strong and I'm happy to be without cancer for today. Every few weeks, a day like today gets ahold of me and I struggle. Tomorrow will be a new day and will be better.
Please know you are all in my daily prayers as my "AML friends". I ask God to keep you healthy, strong, give you peace, healing and support.
My down for today: I'm so scared. Scared it will return. Scared it will take me from my boys and husband. Scared of a transplant. Scared I won't have a donor and my family will have to watch me die. Scared I can't handle it again. Scared scared scared. Not all days are like this. Most days my faith is strong and I'm happy to be without cancer for today. Every few weeks, a day like today gets ahold of me and I struggle. Tomorrow will be a new day and will be better.
Please know you are all in my daily prayers as my "AML friends". I ask God to keep you healthy, strong, give you peace, healing and support.
First and foremost, huge congrats on completing chemo. How awesome. What a blessing to have a firm end date rather than a nebulous, it depends on how you tolerate xyz. I am confident your fluidwill be clear. Getting your picc line out is so cathartic. It is one of those things iI look for at my monthly clinic visits. If someone still has a line, I can gage where they are in their treatment. I worried when theytook my hickman because of IT comes back ok need it.
I empathize with being scared. Dealing with Laaryssa's decline is really affecting me. I long to hear her cute British accent on my voice mail. I fear I will never hear it again this side of heaven. On Sunday, I will celebrate my two year since dx. It is scary. It is normal, at least it is for me, to have good and bad days. Please know that the farther you get this behind you, the more good day you'll have. There are days I forget this ever happened. I'm praying for you.
Julie
Psychologically you have been through a lot. Its like the guilt that many people feel if they are the sole survivor of some catastrophic event. So you are feeling like maybe you deserve to relapse. Well, it will help to try to be more objective than this. You deserve to live just like everyone else does, and we all have to realize that something is going to get us sooner or later.
Perhaps the other thing that will help is to just get on with life -- get back to your job or whatever and get so involved in it that you forget all about what could happen.
Just some thoughts -- I am not a psychiatrist or anything like that, and if you do not find relief from your fear in a few weeks, the it might be good to get some type of professional help. I believe most cancer clinics have counselors that can help and give you reassurance -- they will understand what you are going through.
But my advice is to get into life again, enjoy it to the limit, and just get your mind on so many other things that this fear will fade away. And have no guilt -- you have made a tremendous contribution and you have paid your dues -- so it is time to enjoy life to its fullest -- daveB