New Year's Eve, 2007.
I spent a good part of yesterday reading about Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL). The American Cancer Society Web site has a lot of detailed information, as does Wikipedia. Both were very informative.
The not-so-good news from all that is that CLL is not curable. The better news is that "on average" those who have it live another 15 years, according to statistical records. So, from here on, it's all a matter of "odds" and "living right" to beat those odds, plus monitoring my situation every few months (tests)to see how things are going.
The literature says my immune system won't be quite up to par, so I'll be looking for ways to boost that and to avoid things and situations that could compromise it further.
There is a chance its progress could speed up or take on a more aggressive form; the tests will monitor that.
This morning I spoke to Dr. Schlossberg, my oncologist (that seems strange to say: I had better get used to it). He said he is inclined to do nothing except monitor it. The literature regarding this very slow-progressing leukemia supports that prescription.
I am, however, going to see a radiation specialist about the possibility of shrinking the two lymph nodes that seem to be impinging on my windpipe. After all, something in that region is causing the sleep problem (nighttime gagging) that kicked-off this whole investigation and discovery. I don't know yet when that might take place.
By the way, CLL is almost exclusively a problem for people over the age of 60, more common in males than females, and with some increased prevalence among farmers. Odd? Maybe not. There is a suspected connection to Agent Orange, which is basically the same stuff farmers and I used for years as an herbicide around the farm, and even extensively as a summer job in 1967 with the Rhode Island Fish & Game Department.
Life is weird.
