It's been a bad news, bad news kinda day. Typically when a day is bad you're able to say, "Well at least you have your health." I, however, do not have that. I woke up this morning in some small Texas town and, after an early morning long ass trek, made my way back (brother in tow) to the big city. Along the way, my phone had gone from not making texts to not making calls and then finally back to normal. I started working (late, unfortunately) on this project and then the internet at my brother's place went out. In hindsight, I should've gone back to bed right then. But, ever the optimist, I continued on. I went to show this client some of my ideas for the project and discovered that I had botched the photos I took for it. I felt like an idiot and I should've known better than to try and do it myself anyway. Fortunately, the client is very forgiving and willing to let me fix my mistake (I called on a friend who is a photographer to re-do everything and luckily she was available this week). We were going over other aspects of the project when I was felled (literally) by pain in my chest and then my side. I had to explain my way out of having knocked everything off of their coffee table (including framed pictures of their kids) and excuse myself to the bathroom. I said it was nothing but by now I know better. Pain in my chest or my side is not good. Pain in both at the same time is really not good. They were very nice about it and fed me and let me lay down on the couch for awhile until I felt a little better. My sister-in-law eventually had to come get me and take me home.
One of my best friend's, immortalized here for his auto-correct awesomeness, was once upon a time on track to become a doctor like his father before him. He dropped out of med school his first year and it caused a rift between him and dear old dad (although it had been brewing for eons beforehand). Lucky for me, he and his dad got back on speaking terms a few years ago. His dad is down in Houston but was able to refer me to a colleague in this neck of the woods for a blood draw. The results of that are back in a few days, but I already know the most likely outcome. I had a conversation with my doctor back home about a month ago about side effects of my transfusions. Chest pain was one of them, but if it got to a certain level of pain I was supposed to go to the ER. I am a doctor's worst patient, so I didn't go to the ER. But I did make appointments every time it happened. Until it began happening more frequently. Then I just kinda...tried to ignore it. About a week ago, I had a particularly terrible attack before I went to bed. I could barely talk, I struggled to catch my breath. A few days later my side began to hurt but it was just minor shooting pains. I didn't mention any of it to my nurses who did my blood draws. Since then I've been having good days and bad days but I try to ignore the bad ones and just press on. I'm supposed to have blood drawn once a week, no matter what, but I didn't schedule one for last week or this week. Even without the results from this one in, I can tell my levels are way too low. And I was advised some time ago that if they got to that point again, they'd take more blood to confirm the levels, then more blood to rule out cancer (yet again), and then out would come my spleen. Yeah. And it's a downer. If that is the case, I'll have to skip my trip home and go back to where I came from and have surgery in the next few weeks. The thing about that is I have nowhere to go once I get there. My apartment is being subletted until the end of July. But the recovery from surgery would begin in early July and take god knows how long (took my brother quite sometime to be back to 100% after his was removed). So I don't know. Way too much uncertainty right now. I hate this.
