Today, I am back again!

I’m writing again for today. Here are the current lab values:

WBC: 0.5 (yeah, pretty much non-existent)

ANC: 0.37 (yeah, even more non existent – these are the neutrophil counts, the body’s defense white blood cells in particular)

Hemoglobin: 12.8 roughly (YES. The only thing that is in the normal range. I got a blood transfusion yesterday. Thank you so much to whoever donated blood with my matching blood type, because you just gave me one of the rarest good days I have yet to experience thus far while a little bit debilitated.)

Platelets: 63 (Yeah, these guys are dropping too.)

I was pretty bad yesterday on energy levels. And now I’m excellent today. It’s a roller coaster on what happens under chemotherapy. I wonder if I am good on energy because I am in high spirits, but quite likely mostly due to the blood transfusion.

Don’t worry about the numbers though; it’s suppose to happen this way under chemotherapy. A medication called Kytril is keeping most of my nausea under control. I just love today for the extraordinarily rare source of energy coming from who knows where. Liver results still sort of pending. Final results not in. Pathology is pretty slow.

I know Alexander McQueen committed suicide today. I was really offended at first — deeply. How could someone take their life away JUST LIKE THAT? As a cancer patient, my initial thought process went a little something like this:

1. Dude, Alex, I don’t know WHY you took your life like that.

2. Hey man, there’s tons of people struggling with cancer, which will take over as the #1 killer in the world someday. I got this statistic from the LiveStrong Foundation. Hope it’s as credible source as can be. They are struggling with the will to live. Most of them do NOT want to die!

3. I am kind of angered by what you did. How will your immediate family feel? They must be torn apart. Or your close friends?

It wasn’t until some of my friends brought to my attention an entirely different perspective about suicide. First off, depression is real and scary. But it’s also just a description for the current state of the human mind and heart. Secondly, whether his actions were on a whim or if they involved a lot of decision-making, mental illness exists. And for it to overtake someone like that to reach a point where he finds no escape except that route… yes that is REALLY scary, but to be honest, for minutes and nano-seconds throughout the course of my very brief life thus far, I have also thought about it too under the stress and sadness of cancer. This is perhaps the most honest revelation I have in public that I know will bite me in the butt one day when it comes to graduate school applications or job employment.

Most people who know me will say that I have a pretty vivacious and bubbly personality. But in times of my private sphere, there will be moments of the incredible reality of cancer, when it will hit me so hard that I really want to find an easy exit out of this all. There’s a reason why each day I have to convince myself with complete utter faith and repetition that I will get out of it. There’s a reason why I sometimes call my friends out to ask them if I can yell at them for 20 minutes and then promise I will buy them lunch in the future, because that’s the healthiest way I know I can do it.

So, Alexander, I don’t know you very well. And admittedly I was really initially angry that you felt you had to do this. But with utmost respect for who you are and the fact that you were battling a mental illness… who am I to judge you and how you led your life? I just hope that wherever you are – that you are finally at peace and free from depression and the sadness you felt. And I am so glad to have my friends sort of “light yell” at me and to bring this awareness to me and for not giving me a break from cancer to tell me this.

PS. Sorry for bad writing. I am quite lazy tonight and just overjoyed with energy so I will go do some more laps in the hallways, yeah!!