Living with MCL

It was only yesterday that I wrote about one of Edie’s nephew, who we hadn’t told of our health problems, discovering my blog, and thinking this may be a sign of things to come.

And no sooner do I mention that, then Naomi (one of the old gang, who I have mentioned in previous posts) sends me an email today, saying she was one of those who never bothered to check the web address in the signature line of all my emails.

I suspect she wasn’t so much the one to discover it, as it was Mike, her boy friend, who actually uncovered it. Of course I have been known to be wrong on occasion in the past.

The thing is, Mike is also a Non Hodgkins Lymphoma (NHL) survivor, and he was recently in the hospital due to complications from treatment he was receiving for his lymphoma. I had sent him an email (and yes, I did visit him in the hospital also), before I knew he was in the hospital, wishing him well.

And yesterday, Mike got out of the hospital, so I have a sneaking suspicion that when he was checking back emails, he came across mine, and was just curious enough to check. I may also have expressed too much knowledge of NHL, for anyone not so deeply involved with it themselves, to have peeked anyones interest.

So stay tuned, it should be exciting times in the days and weeks ahead, as more and more people discover my previously closeted life. I only hope they are good times.

I can hardly wait.

It was about this time last year when I registered my domain name, and I wrote my first post on December 5, 2005, and finally a family member, on my wifes side who we had not told about our health problems, managed to find out on their own.

You (at least I did) would think, since every email I send out has the URL for my blog, plus all the emails that my wife and I send to friends and relatives is suffixed with @livingwithmcl.com, it wouldn’t have taken almost a full year for someone to finally be curious enough to investigate. But it did!

Yesterday, Edie received a call from her nephew, who lives in the valley, to inform us that his sister (Edie’s neice), who also lives in the valley, discovered my blog. It came as quite a surprise to them. It should also make for an interesting Thanksgiving dinner, when we go over there Thursday evening.

So what is it that made her check that domain name? If it was curiosity, I would have thought she would have discovered it long ago. I always check domain names of friends to see if there is a website attached. Mostly there isn’t any, but that doesn’t discourage me from still checking every time I come across a new one.

But why is it that most other people don’t bother? Have we just gotten so jaded by the huge number of emails, that we don’t want to take the time or we just don’t feel there is any value in checking? Or have we lost our adventurous nature, and no longer want to discover new things?

Who knows, but maybe this is just a sign of things to come!

Yesterday, I posted about an outbreak of hives I had after a lunch time run, and how good it felt to scratch.

Well this morning at 3:30 AM I was awoken by another outbreak of hives. This time it started on my left forearm and hand, it then spread to my right hand and forearm. After a little time it subsided in those areas, but has now spread to both hips and one big hive on the top of my left foot.

Well, while it certainly still feels good to scratch, at the same time, the relentlessness of the attacks are getting to be extremely annoying.

Oh, and to top it off, my wife mentioned that I need to watch for any indications of an outbreak in my throat, as if I don’t have enough to worry about already.

I have now come to the conclusion, that there may be such a thing as too much of good thing!

Today at lunch time I went for a run. I’ve been trying to supplement by cycling with running, since it’s harder to get motivated to ride in the winter time. A 20 mph wind chill factor just doesn’t make for a very enjoyable ride when the temperature is already below 50°F. Even the sun doesn’t help.

After I finished my run through the sod farm and strawberry fields, near where I work, I noticed my quads were starting to itch. I didn’t think much of it at first, but as it started getting worse, I looked down, and I noticed my quads were covered in what I guessed were hives.

There are a number of things which can cause hives, two of which I have, i.e. allergy to pollen and leukemia (technically lymphoma, but no doubt related), plus it was a bright sunny day, and I do tend to sweat a lot, two other factors which can contribute to hives.

Anywaze, to get to the subject of my post, as the itching increased, I had no choice but to scratch the affected area, and I can tell you, without a doubt, there is no greater feeling than the feeling derived from scratching an itch. It’s like you don’t ever want that feeling to end.

During the time I have been writing this post, the hives have started to disappear, and the itching has dissipated substantially, but for that briefest period of time, I almost didn’t mind the attack nor did I want it to go away.

Think about it, the next time you get an itch, just how enjoyable it is to scratch.