Valentines

Today I got chemo... surprisingly i'm not feeling as bad as I usually do so I thought id post about Valentines day.

I know there are people out there that think Valentines day is a commercial holiday that forces you to spend money but i just want to tell those people to just focus on the good. Is it really so bad that theres a day in our year that people are reminded to appreciate the loved ones in their lives? Granted you should always appreciate them but what's so wrong with a day that its mandatory haha.

anyway last year on Valentines I was in the hospital with e coli. I ended up begging the nurses to let me go home with a portable antibiotic pump so that i could be with my wife at home and it worked...but in the middle of the night I got a ridiculous nose bleed that wouldn't stop so we ended up back in the hospital anyway...the nurses figured something might go wrong so they kept my bed.

Im relieved that this year was different. NO cancer to ruin the day. My wife has this funny quirk where she gets too impatient to wait for the actual day and ends up doing what she had planned at midnight.. so on the 13th of Feb I wasn't allowed in the kitchen at all while she prepared everything. Every now and then she'd come out with flour on her face and her hair a giant mess....i loved it.

what I had planned for valentines isn't going to arrive for another 2 weeks....and although my wife sort of caught me in the act of trying to buy it (she knows what it is now haha....i was kind of relieved because shes very unique in the things that she likes so I was happy to find out that she loved it) im not going to say what it is until it arrives.

anyway at a little before midnight my wife forced me out of the

living room and when she called me back this is what was waiting for me:

She had spent the whole day baking a mini 5 layer lemon ( my favorite flavor) cake:

She made chocolate covered strawberries:

And biscuits ( I was obsessing about them for days) and 3 different types of butter. Honey/cinnamon, raspberry, and lemon.

Needless to say it was AWESOME! And after giving her a kiss and stuffing my face with a biscuit I grabbed my wife and we danced to some Frank from the valentines day playlist I made her (cheesy i know but she loves cheese)

No matter what we've been through and how life is at the time...I will always be grateful that I married my best friend. To this day I still would rather spend my time with her...alone... eating cake.

We're not always bald

So i'm sorry for abandoning this blog for the past month.... with traveling and the worst cold known to man it was really hard to even think about writing.

So lets catch up:

In January my wife and I went to my cousins wedding in vancouver. It was a lot of fun and it was really nice to see my family after this long year of getting treatment.

Since my parents live in China, they don't get to see me that much, so it was nice to see my mother( she came to vancouver). Anyway when we were on the plane (on our way home) my wife and I sat next to this lady who was coughing like crazy...and I laughed at the thought of my wife holding her breath everytime....she does that around sick people haha, anyway I guess the lady must have noticed or something because she turned to us and said:

" dont worry about my cough...i have allergies"...... we shouldn't have believed her.

Just when my cc treatment was getting ok, and I was starting school again I came down with the worst flu EVER! Thank you lady who lied to us! So i was looking forward to doing something nice for my wife's birthday ( Jan 17th) because last year i was crazy on steroids and didnt talk to her, but we ended up both being sick. So we spent her birthday asleep....i thought our luck was so bad that it was pretty funny so i HAD to take a pic of us...

Anyway believe it or not i've been sick with this flu for 3 straight weeks, my wife got better... but i'm still getting my chemo.... so i haven't. If you don't remember...chemo brings your immune system down, along with other things like your platelets( things that clot your blood) so because of the flu AND the chemo i've had a lot of really scary things happen the past month.

I've had a lot of nose bleeds from blowing my nose ( sounds normal but if you've ever relapsed with leukemia you'd know that a bloody nose can just as easily mean a relapse...especially if you have it for a couple days)... then i woke up one morning with a weird tingling in my arm.

So i told my doc and ended up having to rush to the hospital to get a lumbar puncture to check to see if the leukemia came back in my spinal fluid... in my case its something to check up on because when i relapsed last year... it was in my spinal fluid.

Needless to say that was a really stressful day for my wife and I. We were sitting in the hospital and all i could think about was how cancer doesn't care whats going on in your life...it's not going to give you a time out just because you've got the flu and you've started school again...it can come back whenever it wants and there's nothing i can do about it.

I know that sounds depressing but its really not. let me explain. the first time I was diagnosed..it was like getting punched in the gut. My wife and I were so caught up in the disease and what it meant that it was hard to focus on each other in that very moment. The same thing happened the second time....i have to admit...when i heard that i relapsed...i didn't take it well and took it out on my wife by shutting down emotionally...and she went into her ninja " ill fix you" mode haha. We didnt care about the moment....we just freaked out.

So THIS time....i have to say i was really proud of my wife and I...instead of freaking out and caring more about what we were about to find out from my lumbar puncture...we just accepted the fact that we don't have control over the answer....so there was no point in even caring about it. Its a not feeling defeated....but content. We just don't want this disease to throw us around anymore....to make us lose control and have emotional spikes that go from really scared to really sad. I think we've had enough of that. We sat together and acted like it was just any other day. I think we talked about what movie to go watch haha.

Anyway the good news is that my lumbar puncture results came back negative...so no relapse :)

Thats not to say that we still don't have scares....just a couple days ago i woke up in the morning and coughed up blood....It's amazing what you have to deal with with this stupid disease. I almost cant remember what its like not to have this stuff happen. Anyway i talked to my doc and it seems that because my platelets are low...when i cough it scratches my throat and TADA bloody cough.

So like a said...this flu has caused us ALOT of little problems....so next time you are on a plane...and you're coughing up a storm.....DONT LIE to the people sitting next to you because you never know if that person is a leukemia patient or not.

we're not always bald!

anyway im feeling better.....so last night.....at around midnight the wifey and i got a mad craving for biscuits....

....they were delicious so sorry i don't have a picture of the finished product :)

anyway hope everyone is happy and healthy.

a cold that never goes away

I've had this cold ever since I've returned from vancouver.. and it's not getting better because I keep getting chemo... that's why I haven't really caught up yet..

anyways... let's see when the cold will leave... this is day 16.. i say by friday it'll be gone... so day 22

what do you guys think? winner gets bragging rights.

peace

Have fun with your hair when you can (old ones)

this one we took for my sister-in-laws birthday.. and on behalf of my wife:" yes. I experimented with my hair. It did not go well. don't laugh. :P "

foreshadowing

I was looking through some photos of last year, and I came across this one my wife took... she had her idea before she knew it... she did this eight or nine months before she got back into painting... I just showed it too her and she's surprised too... weird huh...

since i'm at it.. i'll share some more cool photos i've come accross..

we were in rochester for the weekend... and we decided to go sledding at 11:00pm .. we were bored in the house and said what the hell...

i spat out blood while I was there... it didn't ruin the mood.. it's just a reminder that it follows you everywhere...

(By showing the last photo I don't mean to be cynical... I just mean to encourage people with leukemia... don't get down about your situations. The illness is going to follow you wherever you go... it's a matter of whether you are going to let it affect your quality of life)

should get to bed..

peace

Donate to Haiti

Hey guys...

real quick before I make any updates..

donate to Haiti..

if you are in canada go to:

https://secure.e2rm.com/registrant/donate.aspx?EventID=43149&LangPref=en-CA

if you are in america go to:

http://american.redcross.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ntld_main&s_src=RSG000000000&s_subsrc=RCO_BigRedButton

really... 10 bucks goes a long way...

peace

p.s. I have a cold.. and that's why I haven't been able to update.. there's a lot to catch up...

traveling

hey guys..

So i've been traveling these past few days... I went and surprised my wife down in the US.. and we just recently got back... and now we are off again to vancouver for my cousins wedding...

looks like i got a holiday vacation after all!!!...

i'll write more when I get back and life resumes to normality...

peace

catch up..

ok... so what has happened, that ya'll need to know about...

so before jamaica we had thanksgiving at our place with Shahrzad's sister and husband. It was the first time any of us had attempted to cook a thanksgiving meal, but fortunately it turned out amazing.

So a few weeks after that we went to jamaica. We kinda had planned going somewhere when intensification was done as a pat on the back just for getting through it. I'm glad that we actually did go, instead of it being something that was just hoped for. We had an amazing time there but yet at the same time we got bored really fast. See, the thing is we have been just sitting around for the past year (granted it was while enduring difficulties), and that is what you want to do on a vacation. It's like your life was on pause and you just want to press play and get it started again. While basking in the sun that was some of our conversation of how we were both nervous, excited and anxious about getting back to normality.

There really isn't much to mention about the trip except for the sun, relaxation and the one tour we took to Negril beach and Rick's cafe where we saw cliff divers... The tour was excellent. The tour guide was telling us about the island while we were on our hour and a half trip to our destination... did you know (if I remember correctly) that jamaica has some of the purest drinking water and has the most churches per square mile than anywhere else. Once we arrived we just went onto the beach to sun bathe. After about 30 mins of that, I jumped onto a jet-sky and had my fun!! After some gift shopping later in the afternoon, we headed to rick's cafe. We were there for the sunset while watching the cliff divers.

so what's going on now... We are trying to get to my cousins wedding (congratulations!!), which is a little over a week after the new years... Hopefully we can make it. It would be nice cause quite a few members of my family are going to be there and it would be real nice to see them.

I am also trying to join a gym and get a personal trainer. I have a consultation with a trainer that has worked with cc patients in the past tomorrow. I am really looking forward to this cause I have been lying down for a year and all my muscles have atrophied. It will also be something I can do to help maintain my health.

Shahrzad's in New York right now helping her sister find an apartment. The plan was for me to be there also, but we completely forgot about the fact that I have chemo appointments that I have to be at. It's weird that she's gone. We have spent the the past 2 years everyday together.. and when I say that, I'm not kidding; we have literally spent no more than 4 hours apart the past 2 years... we need this time apart cause it's nice to miss the person you love... it reminds me of the beginning of our 'courtship' when we were maintaining a long distance relationship... she's like my the other half of me... it hasn't been 12 hours yet and I miss her like it's been days...

anyways it's getting late and I promised my wife I would take care of myself...

peace

I'm back

hey guys I'm back... I wasn't able to write while in Jamaica (yeah man) cause there was no internet and I was too busy enjoying the sun.!! :)

while I was flying there my computer crashed on the plane... so right now I am at the apple store trying to pass time while they fix it.. so bare with me while I get my life organized again...

I miss writing and i'm excited for this new chapter in my life.

peace

P.S. i'll be posting pics from the trip so please be patient...

time for an update

so guys.. sorry it's been a while... so lets see what's new...

couple days ago we went to the orthopedic to see what the situation was with my knees... good news... looks like the damage that they saw in my MRI results did not reach my joints... so no need for surgery like we had originally expected.

I've also had my PICC removed, cause I have entered maintenance... I will still be receiving chemo every week, but i'll be visiting the hospital only once every 3 weeks, and the other times there will be a nurse coming to my home to administer the chemo.

To celebrate going into maintenance, my wife and I are going to take a trip to Jamaica (in about a week) which we are both really excited about... we are looking forward to the sun, beach and pampering by hotel staff... if anybody needs it, it's my wife.. she's gotten me this far :) .. thank you my love...

meanwhile, I am trying to get my energy back.. I'm trying to get myself into a routine now... i function best that way... taking walks in the building corridors and getting on the bike my siblings got for me... I have been able to cook dinner again and help my wife clean the house... so things are finally going uphill...

My wife and I were talking last night about the positives we have received from this experience so far. One thing we are both thankful for is, we have become aware of what we put into our bodies now. Before we ate based on what we enjoyed and didn't think about the nutritional value and consequences, now, we eat thinking about what we are eating, and where it's coming from, and we are both glad that we learned this early in our lives so we can pass onto our children. Also we are happy that we've learned to cook. One thing we both wanted for our future family was home cooked meals for our children... we both have good memories from our mothers cooking and we wanted our children to have that same experience... now they will. We are also thankful that we learned this lesson much earlier than we would have if we didn't experience cc... people usually don't watch out for their bodies until they reach a certain age... and sometimes it's too late, now, we may have potentially learned they lesson to remain youthful ;)... there's much more, but i won't bore you with them...

anyways... maybe i'll write from jamaica next ;) ...

to all my friends I sincerely miss you all... and to those of you who are close to me... lets hang out soon... i'm finally up for it...

peace