Dec 29th Medical Update, Cool new book

Hello,
            I've been doing pretty well the last few days, I'm sure that the steroids have given me a jolt and I'm not really complaining about that. I'm sure that a crash will be coming sometime Sat or Sun, this might interfere with Jonathan's football plans, ha ha. I just have to ride the waves, your know. I also have added a anti depressant/anxiety med to my growing med log. This is mostly because of the hormonal birth control that I'm being forced to take so that I don't bleed to death. Hormones and me do not get along very well. I'm not set on it yet, but I'd figure that I'd give it a try until I can figure out something else. I have not had any more migraines, a blessing for sure. I also have a new prayer request. After I get through all this a would prefer to be fertile and not infertile that the chemo can cause some women. I'd like to have another child of our own one day. So Jill, get to praying, or what ever moves you do to get that stuff going :) I also have some serious chemo brain. I really think that my IQ has dropped about 10 points. I'm going to talk to Emory to see if they have a study going on about it, I'd like to be a part of it.
              My chemo went well yesterday. I can tell that I'm not as hungry today but it didn't take that long once we got started. My counts looked good and I didn't have to go to Athens regional to get blood. Hooray! I did go by the hospital to see my Granny, with permission and a mask :) and she should be coming home tomorrow! Today, I found out about an acquaintance here in Athens, that passed away about a year ago of Leukemia after his BMT. Sad news. His wife and him were deeply in love, you could always tell. Today, I was able to take a walk and that was nice and I went to a friends house for breakfast. It's truly the little things.
              I'm reading a really neat book that someone bought me. It's called The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer  by Siddhartha Mukherjee. It goes through the history of cancer, how they found treatments, and basically takes medical journals down to our level. It is a very interesting and readable book. One of the neatest things I learned was that the all of the first pharmaceuticals were called chemotherapy and the first chemical drugs came out of the textile industry in the 1800's due to the need for new and cheaper dies for our growing cotton industry. Dr. Ehrlich, after many experiments, found the first antisyphilitic drug. His experiments were based on finding drugs that had specific affinity, meaning that the drug can tell which is the host and which is the intruder. This is most difficult with cancers due to the fact that cancer cells are so much like regular cells.
                 The first chemotherapy for cancer actually came out of a war weapon, mustard gas. The doctors, Goodman and Gilaman, studied the long term effects of the gas on solders and found that the gas has specific affinity for white blood cells. They call it nitrogen mustard or actinomycin D. The chemotherapy, vincristine, that I had yesterday, comes from a poisonous plant they found in Madagascar though in the 1958 drug-discovery program through the Eli Lilly company. It also learned about all many people that had to go through highly toxic treatments, and the doctors that had their ass on the line to experiment will all these drugs, so that I can get treatment now that will save my life. It took a lot for them to get to the point of using 5-6 different chemo drugs including chemo in my spine. See, cancer is like anything else, it becomes resistant to medication and will actually come back stronger. Anyway, the book is helping me understand and I thought some one else might enjoy it too :)

Have a great day!

Love, Heather