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| Taking in the majesty of the Pacific. |
I realize I’ve been missing from the blog world for a while,
but to write, I need time, energy and focus and I have not had an ounce of any
of those for the past two weeks. But I've gotten those things back and the stories of what I've been up to will follow.
Though I've been remiss of those things, what I did have was a bout with
pneumonia, a pleural effusion that made it very hard to breathe, a week
straight of very high temperatures, soaking night sweats, and teeth chattering
chills, several bags of blood, and another round of chemotherapy thrown in. I spent an overnight
at Columbia Presbyterian in the Bronx and then another five-night hospital
stint at Hartford Hospital home in Connecticut after making an Emergency Room
entrance. I also had some life-affirming experiences at the San Francisco
Writer’s Conference and a fantastic time exploring the City by the Bay and the
California Coast.
Yesterday was the first day I was home since I left for Cali
on Feb 13. After a week of vacation, Craig and I separated and I took a red eye
right to NYC to clinic where my mom met me and my medical team could examine me
and infuse my next treatment immediately in case this was Hodgkin gone wild. Today
was the first day that I’ve felt like I’m on the other side of all of these
infections. It feels good. But it has not been an easy go. These weeks have
taken a real tough toll. We didn’t know what was going on for a while there,
and that is a scary feeling. After much examination, imaging, blood tests,
heart tests, monitoring and IV antibiotics all over the place, it was
ultimately determined that I had a community acquired pneumonia in my left lung
(damn sick people on planes) and developed a lot of fluid in the lining around
that same lung which grew as an inflammatory and protective measure.
