Quality of Life
6:15 a.m.
Last night was the most terrible yet. I don't think I slept longer than 10 minutes at a time all night long. I don't know what the total adds up to, but it feels like not nearly enough.
Extreme uncontrollable (and painful) coughing, lungs wheezing. I have never heard the death rattle, but I couldn't help thinking about it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_rattle You really have no choice but to sit up or in most cases actually stand up to try and get the gut wrenching cough under control. Once in a while hocking up a goober of extremely sticky phlegm, but mostly just useless uncontrollable coughing.
The strong pain inside the right lung...right at the same place where it was 7 years ago when I was first diagnosed with leukemia, except now with the addition of lot of very large and sensitive lymph nodes. I remember having this almost debilitating lung pain in Paris, and later at a party given by the Ambassador at the U.S. Embassy in Holland.
I now have so many defective cancerous white blood cells that the hemoglobin and oxygen carrying red blood cells have declined well below what people consider to be optimal minimum levels. So lots of tissues and muscles are just barely getting enough oxygen. Quickly becoming out of breath after slowly walking just 10 or 20 meters. Feet and ankles swelling substantially. I had to go buy some new larger shoes.
On the internet I have been following the same leukemia patients for a while. One is a friend of mine. Yesterday a couple of them had been in such pain and continuous discomfort that they were beginning to question how bad one's quality of life can get in an incurable cancerous disease before it makes perfectly good sense to begin questioning how much longer one should keep up the fight. Or as I would say, How much longer one should put up with this shit.
I would not welcome spending many months or years in this situation, but honestly I don't think the body has the stamina left to survive several months of this this level of abuse anyway. I've been this sick for a while now. I should have the strength to put up with it a few more weeks. If things don't start to show signs of getting any better by then, all bets are going to be gradually begin slipping off the table.
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