Woe Is Me. Kind Of.

Well after a week of staying up too late and getting up too early, it's finally Saturday. Not that I can really tell the difference anymore. In the photo above, if the laptop on the TV tray is up and running, it's a workday, if it isn't, it's a day off. The machine on the left is always up, well, it's up when I'm up.

As you can see, the morning coffee is ready for consumption, both computers are up, and the Ready Helo stands atop the desktop tower, manned and ready. (No, The Missus Herself frowns on me flying it in the house, in case you're wondering. BTW, the other day someone asked what the columnar thing near the window was. No, it's not some slender R2D2 wannabe, it's a fan. Very compact it is. Very handy to have.)

So it's Friday night as I write this, do we have big plans? Uh, no, not at all, even when we're not in Sparkling Isolation. Not to mention which it's been an odd couple of fortnights, health-wise. Now, now, dinnae panic, I've not rendezvoused with the corona, nope, it's the rhino kicking my ass. Head all plugged up, nose dripping like a faucet with a bad o-ring, sneezing like mad. No fever though, which pegs it as the one, not the other. (Also no headache, The Missus Herself tells me that I can't have a headache as I am a headache. Not really, I can be a jerk at times, which... Okay, I can be a headache, never mind.)

This one -

(Source)

Not this one -

(Source)

(If you chase the link under the beer it will lead you to an article. Apparently Grupo Modelo, the folks who brew Corona, have shut down production due to the disease, not wanting their employees to get sick, not due to the stupidity of people who think the beer and the disease are associated. Stupid people shouldn't drink anyway.)

Now the visit from the rhino is just in the past few days, the longer term medical "issue" which has been inflicting Your Humble Scribe is neither life threatening, nor particularly painful, just annoying as Hell.

Back in 2000, might have been 2001, I can't remember, I had this weird looking rash across my chest and back. Showed up all of a sudden like. I got up in the morning and there it was, it wasn't particularly itchy but it was one of those, "Hhmm, that ain't right, better get it checked out." Which I did, puzzled my doctor it did, he'd never seen the like of it (back then my doctor was male, now my doctor is female. No, he didn't have an operation, he left the practice to go elsewhere.). So it was off to the dermatologist, where they checked things out, though now it wasn't a rash, there were these unsightly lesions. So they did a core sample, no really, hurt that did. Left a mark as well, which I suppose is normal when a chunk of flesh is bored out of you!

Anyhoo, I waited a week or so then they called me for a follow-up. Many long faces in the doctor's exam room. I wondered who had died and was ready to offer condolences, then I realized the long faces were on my behalf. Hhmm, thinks I, this can't be good.

"We've got the results from your tests, we think you have anaplastic large T-cell lymphoma (ALCL)."

All I heard was "lymphoma."

A quick check of the Internet gave a prognosis of seven years. Hhmm, gives me a bit of time it does. My buddy Fred thought I was taking it rather well.

"Well Fred, we all have to die sometime. If this is how the Lord wants me to check out, well, there ya go. Better than getting hit by a bus I suppose!"

Fred and I had a chuckle, then we all went out to dinner where far too much alcohol was consumed. (Fred was my pastor, a grand fellow. I loved that guy and was crushed when he passed away, from cancer, in January of 2008. Which began the "bad stretch of years," as I recall them. Fred in 2008, my Dad in 2010, Lex in 2012, then Buck in 2014. Yes, I grew to be quite nervous of even numbered years!)

Anyhoo, the nice folks at the dermatologist sent me off to a cancer doc at Rhode Island Hospital (with my own doctor's concurrence, of course). After an examination, we chatted for a bit. I described the lesions to him and mentioned that they eventually erupted, dried up, and went away. (Ooh, that was a bit graphic, sorry...)

"They go away?"

"Yes, sometimes they leave a scar, as you can see here, but yeah, they go away."

"Uh, not sure how to say this, but ALCL lesions don't heal, or go away. Let me go check something."

He left the exam room, gotta say I was happy with the not ALCL thing, but that left me back at square one, what the Hell is this malady I have? Oh, forgot to mention, the "this isn't ALCL" thing wasn't at the first visit. That was an exam followed by an appointment for another "procedure." This one involved a bone marrow sampling. From the small of my back. Let's just say, there are certain parts of the body which can't really be numbed enough. The small of the back, well, the pelvic bone underneath that region, is one of them. Must have been nasty to watch as well, The Missus Herself wanted to be there with me (one of the many reasons I love that woman) so she was and almost passed out. Doc had her leave the room.

Yeah, that procedure sucked and it hurt, quite a bit. Not a sharp pain but a feeling of discomfort, much discomfort. Glad that was over.

Anyhoo, long story short, turns out what I actually had was called lymphomatoid papulosis (LyP), which took me years to spell correctly. I spent most of a year traveling up to Tufts Medical Center up in Boston. The doctor there (a very fine lady doctor who now teaches at Yale, last I heard, she'll produce some fine doctors, of that I'm sure) wrote me a prescription for methotrexate, I think it was 75 milligrams a week.

Eventually the lesions stopped popping up. As the doc was moving to New Haven, Connecticut, for the Yale gig, and there seemed no need to continue "shipping up to Boston," we agreed that my own doctor could keep an eye on things. (This was the lady doctor I have now, great doc BTW.) Also I was off the meth. Heh.

But...

(You had to know there was a "but" in there somewhere.)

Every now and again, when Spring has sprung and the weather begins to get nicer, I will have an outbreak of the LyP. Usually they're just wee things which resolve in a day or so. Occasionally though I will get one of the big, nasty looking ones. Said nasty looking one I indeed am dealing with right now. On my face. Yay me.

It's about ready to "crater" (as I put it), then it will be nasty for a day or so, then dry up and go away. Well, I thought the worst was past until I woke up Friday morning. As I'm making the bed, I notice something on my pillow. I put my glasses on and it looked like someone had been assassinated right there on my pillow. Blood all over. Eeww!

Seems it hasn't completely dried up, yet.

So I've got that on my plate right now. Not painful, just ugly looking and annoying. I also can't really shave either, so I look downright unkempt. Well, more so than usual.

The disease, BTW, is not contagious. It is also rather rare. Yay me.

With that and the head cold, blogging might be sparse in the next few days. Probably not, but you never know, just wanted to give you all a heads up in the event Your Humble Scribe doesn't post something one morning. I didn't die, it's just that my morale is in the toilet at the moment.

But this too shall pass.

Be well and, as the sergeant used to say on Hill Street Blues, let's be careful out there.