More of Day 1

             After an exciting ride in the ambulance, I arrived at University of Colorado Hospital in Denver, Co., Thurs. Aug. 18, 2011. The staff was wonderful and made me comfortable right away. I was quickly surrounded by medical professionals and the procedures began. I don't remember too much that evening but morning came quick.
              The average person has approx 4000-12,000 white blood cells, all test results showed I had 280,000. No typo! Of course, one of the first procedures had to involve reducing this escalated number. After the EKG, MRI, CatScan, Xrays, Bone Marrow Biopsy they rolled a huge machine in my room (can't remember the name, starts with an F). This machine acts as a dialysis for blood cells. Needles are hooked up to each arm with tubing attached and it's all connected to this machine. The cells are filtered out of one arm into the machine, some are destroyed and some are returned to your body through the other arm. The only part of the process that hurt was when the the tubing is inserted in your right arm (wrist area), the tubing is 18 gauge, which is very large, at the moment of entry it felt as if my wrist had been broke. This procedure was done twice for the total removal of 200,000 white blood cells. This an other procedures had to be done before chemo could be administered. 48 hours from arrival we were able to begin chemo to kill off the leukemia cells.
              Sunday morning my mind was a bit clearer and the doctors once again explained what was going on to me. I realized the severity of the situation when the doctor said, "when you arrived at the hospital we weren't sure you would make it through the weekend." YES, I'm stable now but that is very scary to hear. Please remember this all started with cold/flu/absessed tooth like symptoms. I have learned to take charge of my health care, if something doesn't seem right to you it's ok to challenge your physicians. It's your life and nobody knows your body as well as YOU do! More to come soon, please follow my journey it's going to be a long ride.