Birthday Reflections

The last time I wrote in this blog was December 31, 2017. A lot of horrible things happened in 2018 and early 2019 that are still difficult to bring up, a lot of pain, scars and tears that I never want to experience again. There are days that I hate the body I feel trapped in and days where I find it amazing what my body is capable of. I've asked a lot of my body and it hasn't let me down yet. After 34 trips around the sun, I'm still here. While I wish I actually looked and felt like 34 instead of 65, there is definitely an appreciation for being allowed to be here another year. 

It's hard to believe that the last 4 years of my life have been dedicated to survival, and it's not that the present and future don't also require some of the same dedication, but with time, leukemia and my transplant are becoming more and more a part of my past while I work at creating and accepting a different future than what I previously envisioned. The good news is, that within reason, I can pretty much do everything that I used to do- my body just pays for it a little more the next day than it used to.    

A little summary of where I'm at health wise...

In 15 days, I'll be 2 years post transplant, still in remission. I still take meds to control graft vs. host disease, of which, the goal is for me to be off of all meds by summer 2020. After countless transfusions, I have a huge iron overload, so I go in for biweekly injections to boost my red blood cells and on the off weeks, I go for phlebotomies (basically like donating blood) until my ferritin level is at an acceptable number. This process will take approximately 1 year to complete. I'm still at high risk for infection, but I recently started the revaccination process. I'll have a checkup in Seattle in mid November, but I'm really hoping that the next checkup can be pushed back more than the every 6 months track that I'm currently on. 

We recently moved to Manhattan, just west of Bozeman, from our house in Lolo. While I think we'll ultimately like it here more than Lolo, it was definitely sad to move away from friends and familiarity. Manhattan is a town of around 1,700 people and the biggest event each year is the Potato Festival which interestingly enough had way more other foods besides potato based items sold at all of the food trucks- still a good time though. We also don't get standard mail delivery and have to use a PO Box unless something is delivered by UPS or FedEx. The best thing, I think, about the neighborhood though is that there's a playground next to our house, so Remi is loving life. And, unless it's cloudy, there has yet to be a bad sunset. 

So, goals for the upcoming months...get ripped AF and ski all winter long/learn to downhill ski, laugh and celebrate harder, do one thing for myself each week, schedule a tropical vacation, and begin the process to work again. 

Thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes. Over and out.