A place where I can chronicle my family's journey through cancer. A place where WE can discuss our concerns. A place where WE can inspire each other. A place for hope.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

This Shit is INSANE!!!

HOLY GUACAMOLE!!!!
OK. I just thought I would update everyone on what we've been up to and how the "Monsters Against Myeloma" event has been going :)

The last 24 hours have been BANANAS! Where do I even begin?!
Perhaps the beginning is a good start (obvi).
(I'm running on about 4 hours of sleep here, accompanied by +30C weather. So if I seem a little crazy, it's because I am)

1. Yesterday I did a great interview with the Edmonton Sun, answering questions about the MAM event and basically what we've been up to since the beginning of the year (diagnosis). It was quick, simple, and that was that! I was expecting the article to be a tiny little blurb in some obscure location within the newspaper, but DANG was I wrong. This morning I woke up to a text message saying, "You're on the front page! Congratulations!" My mom would later tell me that she had opened up a fortune cookie the night before foreshadowing a "surprise". Coincidence? (Link to our article HERE)

2. This bit might seem a little confusing, so i'll try to lay it out the best I can. Basically, we have kept my mom's situation on the downlow within my family solely for the reason that my grandparents don't find out. The very last thing we need is for another family member to get sick from stress. Not cool. So because of that, we had only told a couple families within our extended family. I'm not entirely sure WHAT I WAS THINKING when I was doing the interview and sent in the picture for the news article, but it definitely was not one of my brightest moments. So when I read the above mentioned text, I literally sat up straight in my bed and almost screamed. Yeah yeah, drama queen, I know. But I soon found out that the Sun had posted a HUGEEEEE picture of Gaga with a picture of my mom and I on the bottom. Yeah, that's not gonna get any attention AT ALL! You see, there are still people in my family that live in Edmonton who don't know about my mom's situation. I think I was somehow trying to get publicity for the event but at the same time foolishly pretend that my family would never get word of it? Silly SILLY Lance, Tricks are for... (you can complete this sentence). So for about a gooood...5 hours, I was a nervous wreck. I don't think I have been that stressed out since my mom was diagnosed. Yeah, brutes. I even lost my appetite (if you will remember, this also happened to me when mama bear was diagnosed). MY APPETITE! This is coming from a guy that feverishly watched 5 hours straight of Cake Boss...WHILST.EATING.CAKE! (and lots of it) Anyways, long story short, we haven't heard from any family members (yet), so we're hoping they didn't hear the news. My mom freaked out a little this morning, but now she thinks it might turn out to be a blessing in disguise. So... I'll roll with it. As long as she is cool, i'm cool. (PS: Is it weird that I am really really proud that we were featured FRONT PAGE, but also super angry of my incredible stupidity here?)

3. Today was the LAST day that mama bear received chemo before we start this crazy, wacky journey that is the "Autologous Stem Cell Transplant". It almost seems surreal. This abnormal routine has become such a constant fixture in our lives that it almost seems unnatural that we have stopped chemo (hopefully FOREVER AND EVER). Wow, I NEVER thought i'd see the day where I admit stopping chemo seems unnatural. Who would have thought? NOT I!!! Needless to say... Today is a monumental day for us.

4. I found out later on that PEREZ HILTON gave us a shout-out on Twitter, asking all the little monsters to join our cause, personally tweeting GAGA as well! Incase you weren't aware, this guy has a HUGEEEEE following!!! More than 2 MILLION followers on twitter!!! So to get M.A.M. on that kind of platform was BATSHITCRAZY!!!! Within half an hour of his tweet, we had more than 100 members join our group from all over the world! How amazing is that?!?! Little monsters globally uniting for a good cause. It's a beautiful thing. (PS: THANK YOU to whoever let Mr. Hilton aware of our event!!!!!)

5. (This week) I'm JUST getting over the cold (I know, WHO gets sick in the middle of SUMMER?!). It was one of those ones where you start of with a sore throat, then a cough, then fatigue, then faucet nostrils. Thankfully, i'm over that pain in the arse, but I think I might have accidentally gave it to my brother (oops) :( Perfect timing, eh? Well, while we were in treatment today, my mom's white blood cell and neutrophil (which go hand-in-hand usually) count were slightly above the normal range. Upside is, her immune system is working great! Downside, that could have been a sign that her body was creating an immune response to fight off something. NOT.GOOD. We need to get that down a little, which means my brother will probably have to be quarantined for the duration of his cold.

So YEAH! That's pretty much what's been happenin'! Monsters Against Myeloma is kicking into high gear now, so i'll DEFINITELY be updating more on that soon!

Hope everyone is doing well :)

Health, Hope, & Happiness

L

2 comments:

  1. Hey there!

    Congrats on the article and the new found notoriety! You are doing a great thing for a great cause, and you and your family should be nothing but proud. My mom is on Day +3 of her autologous SCT right now and its no picnic, but we are getting through it. Best of luck to you and your mama bear in your myeloma journey and congrats on bringing such positive attention to this disease.

    -Laura :)

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  2. Laura!
    How is your mom doing? Do you have any tips/suggestions? We're starting next week :|!!!

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