PS - Chris....I wanted to post #270.....for the New Year....like you wanting to post #200 a month ago...

Hee hee - Happy New Year!

Gayle

Happy New Year to everyone. Chris, I hope you made it home and feeling better since you're back home. I pray for a good year for all of us battling this wicked disease. I had a blood transfusion Dec. 10 and have felt great since then. We actually had a great New Years with family and friends and didn't get home till 2:30 AM!!! I woke up as usual at 5:30 and got up and made coffee. It seems insomnia has been part of my life since i was diagnosed with MDS/CMML (leukemia). I have been on oral Vidaza for 8 months(I think) and have not heard the word remission, as others at MD Anderson have heard, but I am still hopeful as my counts are not too bad. It has been great hearing about everyone and their lives. Mine seem to be rather boring compared. I am 60 and have been married to my high school sweetheart for 42 years. Where did the time go? I was a social worker, retiring last July, from Dept. of Children and Family Services here in Illinois. Jerry (hubby) retired from Caterpillar Tractor Co. and was a was a union negotiator for many of the years till he retired. Caterpillar has moved almost all the jobs out of Illinois and moved overseas or to "right to work" states. I have 3 children who are all grown and given me 6 grandchildren which we enjoy immensely. They all live close. I live in a small town of 1900 in the middle of lots of fields. Libby's plant corn, pumpkins, green beans and numerous other crops all around us, plus seed corn, field corn, soybeans, sweet corn, watermelons and cantelope are numerous here. It's just too darned cold here in the winter and we are planning trips to warmer weather to get out of here for a while. That is between all my trips to Houston, Texas, for treatment. I do feel blessed and pray this new year will be good to me and all of you.

Hi all,
Happy New Year.

We made it back on the 30th, and I made it to Hospital for my usual appointmnets with the bloodsuckers and consultants. Everything is fine, I am reasonably stable, Hemoglobon is good, platelets not existent, and Whote Blood Cells a bit to hogh, but coming down. Started nose bleeds now.! Amazing, cos I have never had one in my life before.
Thursday lunch time we drove to St Leonards on Sea, part of Hastings where William the Conqueror landed in 1066, and had the Battle of Hastings which he won. and so stayed on to be King....you might prefer this solution in the States, to your long drawn out campaogns to be Peresident. Much easier, tho more blood Thirsty, but who are we who have MDS to complain about spilt blood.???

Three days by the seasside, blue skies, lovely calm seas, and freezing at night, though the day time temperature made up for this.

Sorry Gayle, you missed 270, and got 271.!!! The real challenge is to get 300, tats coming up soon!

Thanks to all for their comments and good wishes. Susan, Mary Gayle, Sharon.

P.S. Sharon, I lost 3 kilos in Colombia. But then I eat minute portions, smoke like hell, and drink little alcohol.

Question? Do you smoke after intercourse?

Answer....(looking dowm) I've never looked to try and see before!

Yes I am totally incorrigable!

Love to all.
Christopher.

Hello Everyone,

Chris, I am glad you made it back to your homeland. Hope your trip home was a pleasant one.

Happy New Year to you all, Susan, Gayle, Lou, Birdmom and everyone else that reads these postings.

I hope 2010 will be a better year that 2009.
Mary

Sorry to be so silent. Lots going on here (not MDS, thank heavens). I'm still getting monthly Aranesp shots & feeling good. One lady there last time was disappointed that she couldn't get one (her count was just over 12). Hmmm. I'd think she'd be happy about that.

Gayle did get #270, Chris--look again!

Glad you're back safe & (ahem) sound.

Susan, I'm happy that you posted more about yourself. I'll picture you in the middle of a snowy field of corn stubble!

Mary, I too hope for 2010 to be an improvement over 2009. I think, tho, that I will have to stop reading the newspaper so that I can fool myself. Or maybe we should take up Chris's suggestion & do away with our would-be kings. We wouldn't have to suffer the political bombardment we do now.

Chris, why are you not eating? Part of leukemia? Say, I have an extra 2 kilos I can send to you.

And yes, you are incorrigible!

Sorry Gayle, I did not acknowledge your Victory No 270. Must be the senility creeping on.

We are all snowed up here, even in the South of England. I woke at 5.00am this morning to go to an appointment at Kings College Hospital in London, but with 6 inches of snow overnight, thought wisdom should prevail, as a 50 mile trip each way was not really terribly advisable!!!

Am well. The purpura has faded, it is apparently brought about by my lack of platelets. Really I find it difficult to remember that I have MDS (now) AML, its only the pills I take, and the frequent visits to the Vampires' lair that reminds me. BUT I feel GREAT!!!!!

Yes your forefathers, Sharon, overreacted to Good King George. Just think, in 2012, Queen Elizabeth II will have reigned for 60 years, and during that time you have had a real miscellany of Prezzies, from Nixon, to Peanuts and many others! We all have to live by our mistakes, but I do feel a little sorry for you.!!!

Gayle the real test is who gets 300. Theres a challenge.

Love to all
Christopher.

Ha Chris - glad you've seen the error of your ways regarding #270. Good luck getting #300....it will be a test of perserverance!. May the best man (or woman) win!

Lou heard they may discontinue using Procrit...has anyone else heard that? He goes to the vampire on Friday to see how he's doing and what new routine they have planned.

Home sick today with a bad head cold and cough (I got it from Lou). He's doing better - whew.

Gayle & lou

Wow - I'm recovering from a very bad case of food poisoning and/or flu. Had company for dinner last Saturday and right after they left I started getting sick. I got really really sick with chills and fever. Lou didn't know what to do so he called the paramedics who took me to the hospital. They didn't release me until Monday afternoon because they couldn't get my fever to break. We still don't know what it was but they're certain it wasn't H1N1. I'll be returning to work on Tuesday, after the holiday. I'm just thankful Lou didn't get sick!

Gayle & Lou

PS - hey where is everyone?

I'm here, Gayle, just up to my eyebrows in a large project. Thankfully, the finished product will be presented next Tues, & I can relax again.

That's some flu you went thru. I hope none of your guests caught it, & it's amazing that Lou didn't. I have a friend who is sick as a dog now, maybe the same strain. She's had both flu shots, but her immune system is not so hot after radiation for lung cancer.

I see my hema/oncol Monday, so I'll post my results then. I'm feeling well, so I don't expect any surprises. Aranesp has been a wonderful drug for me.

Hello Everyone,
Gayle, I am sorry you were so sick. I am also glad Lou didn;t get it also. I am trying to make sure we don't get near the sick because of Jim's low system. Birdmom, hope your results are better. We have had really cold weather for the deep south the last 3 weeks. But today is warming up a bit. I pray for you ALL.
Mary

Congratulations Mary on hitting 280. See there is some competition building up, for another new member column, wouldn't it be better if we are all on the same one.? Somebody on your side of the Atlantic please organise it. Sounds like a job for Sharon and Gayle.!!!! Perhaps the organiser of DS, doug could help.!!! You folks know how to talk to another statesider!
Good luck.
p.s. I am OK, but am having bad pains at the back of both legs. Guess it might be vascular, but my GP cannot identify it. The paon is bad, and I am on painkllers all the time. Sleeping is difficult, except when I am watching TV, when I fall sound asleep. In bed, I sleep for 3 hours out of 8. Getting nose bleeds, lots of sores and blisters in my mouth, bruising all over, a sore throat, and waht more.......oh the list is endless. But I am OK, and still being impossible, well.....why be difficult when with a little effort I can be totally impossible. Poor Judith, and poor your husbands, they pay a big price sticking with us.!!!
Chris.

Chris, you certainly have a plateful of symptoms now. I wonder about your leg pain. I haven't heard of that symptom before, but then I'm not all that educated about leukemia either.

As to organizing us MDSers, folks need to be free to go where they need. I forget to look at the other entries most of the time, as our little group has been the most active. But I wonder where some of our folks are who no longer post. And how they're doing.

Sharin

Of course you are right, but we could do with a new transfusion of opinions, thoghts and gripes, they help to keep the world going round.

My leg pains, I guess that they are vascular, and not strictly connected with MDS or AML, but give me cause for worry, for strokes are one of a list of problems that occur in those with MDS or AML. Will see my GP next week, and hope she will throw some light on the problem.
Meanwhile the good news.....we have had a good thaw, and the snow and ice has gone,....a great relief.
Hope you are all having a great week-end.
Chris.

My turn in the box. Went to my hema/oncologist yesterday (every 3 months I see him). Not till the end did I realize what my counts were, because he suggested I start coming in every 3 weeks for Aranesp shots rather than 4. I'd dropped from 10.6 to 9.5 in 4 weeks.

I guess I was in total shock (that's my 2nd worst reading), because I walked out of the place without setting up my next appointment. Not until hours later, when a friend asked me if I got a shot, did I realize that I didn't do that either! I had simply walked out & did an errand. I'm not going to relate the next two awful things I did, but let's just say it wasn't my best day ever.

So guess what? After presenting copies of a book I've been working on for months to a board of directors this morning, I had to go back to Fresno today & do the dirty deed. Both days we've had a lot of rain, so it hasn't been the most pleasant 70-mile round trip I've ever driven. Mind you, we need the rain, so it's welcome. Yesterday we had a thunderstorm with wind, heavy rain, & hail. Fortunately, that happened about half an hour after I got home.

After tomorrow, when I have an apptmt to get a thorn removed from my knuckle that's been there for 4 months, I'm done. No appointments, no deadlines, no nothing. I need to gather my wits. But I don't know where they got to!

Sharon,

You really must grasp the fact that you are now over 21, and your facilities will have started going down hill. Its a very sad day, when the realisation hits, but it marks the day when realise we hvae to think before we act, and keep asking ourselves, "what have I forgotten to do ". Last time I went to the vampires, I forget to ask for a prescroption, and had a hell of a job, with the difficulties caused by not being able to get my car out, with the snow and ice.
Mind you, Sharon , I am a good 4 years older than you, but you have my sympathy, thoigh that hardly makes up for a 70 odd mile round trip.

Love
Chris.