November 14, 2005 by MrRi¢h.

Its more like month 3, but its week 3 or so since I’ve been seeing my new doctors. I had an appointment with them last Thursday afternoon. I gotta tell you it was one of the most interesting doctor’s appointments I ever had. See when I had been in the hospital late last month and had to discuss my health with everyone until I was sick of it, one of my Drs. decided to do something different, get to know me. Turns out we have some simliar interests and we had some interesting conversations. One was about pro wrestling which would carry over to this past visit. We both have old skool replica wrestling belts and he thought it would a fun thing to take pictures and show them off. I didn’t forget about it, neither did the good doctor. Though he didn’t bring his belt in. Ah well. In the middle of my appointment we stopped to take pictures and show off. It was fun, especially considering where we were. I do have the photos and will probably edit this post to include at least one.

Once the fun was over, it was back to business. While its great that my doctor can be a fun guy, its very reassuring to know when its time deal with his business, um me I know he’s serious. With that, my platelet count is making progress. (67,000. Normal is 140,000-150,000) Its not where they thought it would be by now. So they’re slowly weening me off my medicine. We discussed new treatments and what ifs long term. “What ifs” would be the worse case scenario and I pray I never have to think about it or ever come to those cliched bridges.

This Wednesday morning I’m suppose to begin my new treatment. Which I admit feels scary. Its brand new for me. Believe it or not its a type of chemo thearpy drug without the radiation. Unlike my current medicine there shouldn’t be any side effects, except for the acute ones. That’s where I guess I might be scared. The first couple of hours will be pretty important. The doctors and there staff will be monitoring me and doing what they can so I can avoid any acute side effects all together.

Now I’m not totally sure if I will have my first treatment this week. Unfortunately over the past two weeks both my parents caught colds. Being home and being on a drug that weakens your immunue system, I caught a little something too. This made my weekend suck as any plans I originally had and wanted to have pre mid-week treatment had to be postponed. Though If I feel better tomorrow I may try to get out. If you can believe it, I feel worse being sick with some common sinus cold then a blood disorder that could have killed me. If that’s not up there for irony, I’m not sure what is.

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November 8, 2005 by MrRi¢h.

A week ago was THE day FINALLY to see my hopeful new doctor. I had made it another week with no emergencies and all I had to do was wait until the afternoon to pick up an “approved” form and see the new doctor. Not so fast because that would be too easy.

My mom and I go down to the hospital and go to patient services/admitting. The same receptionists are there. I tell the same one who had no idea who I was (yet I had spoken to her previously) why I was there and whom I needed to speak to. Unfortunately my advisor I guess was at lunch. Fair enough, I was 20 minutes early. So mom and I waited…and waited. Supposedly the same receptionist was trying to get a hold of my er advisor. Now its almost 2:45 PM and my appointment with my new doctor is at 3:00. I’m about to make a plea when I see the advisor and almost with a quickness that would otherwise prove I’m not sick I go over to her. Turned out the WHOLE time all the receptionist had to do was go into the office, get my approved insurance paper and take my paper. I waited 45 min or so. When once I met up with my advisor, the whole ordeal took like 30 seconds. I told her, “this is why you have your job and she has hers.” I thanked her for all her help and we were on our way upstairs.

I didn’t have to wait too long in the waiting room. However I had to fill out what I would call the SATs of medical questionaires. Plus talk basically to a team of doctors. This was one reason I wanted to go to a group practice like this. You’re not always dependent on one doctor who only knows your case. I didn’t get to see my doctor until the end when we were trying to figure out “the plan.” Now I understand why. Part of it is that my doctor is the head of the department. Only the best for me!

Before I get into that as she and I are talking, I come to find out that their office staff never bothered to make a copy of my then, newest, low blood count. Otherwise this whole blog post would be different, well maybe. We, well basically she decided to admit me. I would have preferred not to have been, knowing my body and past treatments. While I didn’t like this, I had a feeling I wouldn’t be in the hospital long. Naturally my good attitude and humor came into play immediately.

That night I got my own private room (almost on par with a hotel room) and got situated. I was prepared to be there, at least for one night. My only real problem last week? Getting dinner after the kitchen closed. Someone was able to round up a passable turkey sandwhich, I still couldn’t wait until a real meal would come from home the next day.

At any rate I was giving a steroid I’ve been on before, except in a much high dosage. Blood tests were ordered and thank God, the low blood count had made a signigicant increase. It had better since I was admitted and the freakn medicine may have given me a low grade fever which made part of my night uncomfortable. If it wasn’t for such nice medical personnel and my loving, caring girlfriend, I’m not exactly sure how I would have got through it.

I was discharged the next day in the evening. You would have thought it would have been a longer day dealing with doctors, getting info, treatments, etc. It wasn’t that bad. The staff was friendly and both my doctors are great. One’s a guy who after having to talk to me about my health more times then he even wanted to, he began to get to know me. A welcome relief. Turns out we have some things in common and I think I might have made a new friend. After “hanging” out with the doc, my head doctor would come in the room to talk to my parents and I. She gave us more good news about my health improving and how we’ll proceed next. The doctor felt if I was feeling alright (interesting way to put it considering where I was) I could be treated as an outpatient.

So it began. Unlike back in August I’m in the right place and have the right doctors. For the most part the new, high dose of medicine has been working. Except for yesterday which was the worse for the side effects. Thankfully, that particular side effect has passed. I would never want that to come back.

I see my doctors on Thursday afternoon. So hopefully as it is a gradual process, I’ll begin to get off this steroid. And if works long term, no new medicines. Or if it doesn’t, they’ll continue to discuss new advances in ITP. With no side effects. Now that’s what I’m talking about.

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November 8, 2005 by MrRi¢h.

What the heck is the big blog update…volume 1? I think it will be the start of a multi or big blog update when I could have or couldn’t have made multiple postings.

We’ll begin with Saturday, October 29th, 2005. Originally (think from April 2005) my friend Bill and I were going to Chiller Theater Expo in East Rutherford, NJ. (Their will be no links in the BBU! Ha Hah). Chiller runs this expo with has been celebs (except for Ernie Hudson) and more 3x a year. It can be a heck of a lot fun, especially when you’re representing Ghostbusters like nobody else’s business in NJ. Unfortunately this year was not my year for any of the Chillers. With my health “situation” and on the verge of my final first appointment with my doctor, I was probably bummed that we’d miss out on the last one. I did think of what Bill told me, how they’d be running 2-3 more next year. Good point.

I still wanted to make some good on Halloween weekend and thought hey maybe some Halloween type movies would do the trick. First up Constantine. I admit that in a generation of “younger” actors, I like Keanu Reeves too much. Not that I go out of my way to see his new films or even make that kind of time to watch his DVDs. Thankfully, I do not own his CDs. I am probably sad for knowing the name of his band, Dog Star. Despite all this I assure you I am comfortable with my “straightness.”

Going back to when Constantine was first out. I had tried to get a copy of the movie in a way I wouldn’t condone. It was awful watching part of it on my iBook and so I bailed. When the 2 disc DVD came out with comic book (extras are usually gooder) I got it. For some reason never watched any of it until Saturday.

Now I don’t know anything about the comic unless the film has the same type of set up. Besides liking Keanu Reeves (yes Rich, we know, you went over this) the movie’s storyline interests me. Its sorta science fiction, it also involves us humans against higher powers. I’m a Christian (was raised Catholic) so the good vs evil vs man thing definitely peaked my interest. I don’t quite totally understand this film. A few more viewings, maybe checking out the extras will help. Just the idea that Keanu Reeves was sorta “the one” (think The Matrix) who acted like a ghostbuster with his cross “nutrona wand” who wanted to go to Heaven (think ala Devil’s Advocate) also sold me on wanting to see this. It also stars Rachel Weisz who is also kinda the one. Plus she fought mummies in ancient Egypt.

Maybe in the future I will review DVDs and movies I see. For now with Constantine I’ll say if you’re into the stuff that makes up this film, check it out if it interests you.

After watching the movie I thought I was going to watch a classic like Ghostbusters. For whatever reason that never happened. I think it might have been dinner time or around it. Either way I did something else.

We skip Sunday which brings us to Monday, October 31, 2005. Now since I was 10 years old (at least) I’ve been a Ghostbuster. My “obsession” is well documented on sites like ghostbustersinternational.com which I run. And I’m apart of my friend Bill’s “franchise” site, Ghostbusters-NJ. Again because of my health (with my hopeful, final first doctor’s appointment only 1 day away) I couldn’t do much. I still decided I’d try to don my black flightsuit with black pistol belt and black tactical boots. Not the combat ones, these are actually what the SWAT team would wear. Keep this visual in mind. It’ll come in handy soon enough.

On Halloween my mom and I went out to run some errands. The most noteable place was the one Shop-Rite I don’t like. While waiting in the express line for an only mom type of price check, another cashie saw my costume. I couldn’t expect everyone to know that in GB2 the characters had darker jumpsuits as well. This woman says to me after trying to figure my costume out, “Are you a security guard?” Now I expected something like this. Ghostbusters never seem to get the right “respect” at first on a new job. Especially when the gear is not in tow. Its Halloween, I usually have fun with this stuff. I continued to. “Security guards can’t catch ghosts or perform spook checks. I’m a ghostbuster. Didn’t the “no ghost” logo at least give it away?” Personally she couldn’t have cared less, she humored me for the moment. And while waiting for mom that brightened the day for the time being. What made being at Shop-Rite worth it, at least for mom was we got the item free. You advertise a sale price, the computer marks it up wrong, make good on it. And they did.

Later on Halloween, in the afternoon I couldn’t run up and down from the second floor of my pilatious estate. Of course this Halloween had to be warm and humid. At least it felt that way to me. Then again I was “sick,” so who knows. By then I wasn’t wearing the no ghost logo, but I did sit on my porch to give out candy until dinner time practically. Costumes and moments of note:

- My neigbor’s 3 year old grandson who was 60s style Adam West’s Batman. The little guy and I are close. We shared some bat stories and I took some pictures.

- Elementary/Middle school kids who were Giants. One kid was dressed as one of the team owners who had recently died. His friend was suppose to be a football player. Wasn’t wearing the costume because he was tired. I teased him about how much candy he would get. I made good.

- Other costumes from baby girls and girls were princesses and babies.

We had more children then the last couple of years. I guess that’s good. It also felt good to do something other then let my mind wander about the “what if” about my health. Which is coming up in BBU, Volume 2!

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