In 2018, we moved from Florida to New York. A lot of things changed, from the water to the weather, the pollen, the food, the amount of sunlight, noise levels, stress levels … everything, really.
I started getting what I now call “6 hour colds” in the spring of 2019. I’d feel a tickle in my throat or cough or sneeze, go take a nap, and then wake up feeling fine. I wouldn’t get sick… not for more than 6 hours anyway. It was weird, but really, I didn’t think about it much. Who‘s going to complain about not getting sick?
I also started to notice that, after a lifetime of asthma, hay fever, and allergies, mine had gone away. In Florida, I could go through a jumbo box of Kleenex in a couple of days. In New York, my husband and son were having allergies, which they rarely had in Florida, and I wasn’t. Hmmm. Must be different pollen...
I mentioned earlier that I do some work for the American Lung Association, and a lot of it involves asthma training. I remember arguing over whether asthma was a chronic condition. I thought it wasn’t because, evidently, I had “outgrown” mine.
In early 2020, well, you know what happened. Covid! My family got it, but I didn’t. Hmm… I must be lucky, or maybe I’m one of those asymptomatic carriers.
In 2021, I went hiking with my kids at Letchworth Park, the “Grand Canyon of the East.” It’s a beautiful place, and you should definitely check it out if you get a chance. We parked at the upper falls and walked down steep stone stairs to the middle falls, maybe a distance of a mile or so, mostly stairways but some flat land, too. I was fine on the way down. Getting back to the car was a real challenge, though, because those stairs were steep!
I was getting winded very easily and had to stop a few times. I had never felt like that before. When we got back up to the car, I let my daughter drive. I was too shaky and lightheaded to do it. I recovered after a bit of rest and was fine.
Later, knowing that I needed to get some exercise and build up my stamina, I joined a gym and started doing zumba and yoga regularly. Those hour-long classes never took me to that place of exhaustion I felt at Letchworth.
There were other odd occurrences, and I don’t know if they were symptoms of CLL or not.
It seemed like my hair was thinning, but then again, I was going through menopause and that’s fairly typical.
I gained weight and had less energy in the evenings, but that sounded like menopause, too.
Sometimes, usually after walking up 2 flights of stairs, I would see blue spots. When it happened, I’d just drink a big glass of water. I had never been in an environment like this before, with the heater on 5+ months of the year and a potbelly stove in constant use. It made sense to chalk it up to simple dehydration.
I smelled different, not in a gross way, but just different, more acidic. It motivated me to exercise more and sweat more. I also started going to a sauna in the cold part of the year, approximately once a month.
My armpits were puffy, which could have been from the weight gain.
In December of 2022, I got a mammogram, which revealed an enlarged lymph node in one armpit. It was monitored with ultrasound a couple of times in 2023 and seemed to be slowly growing.
So we did a biopsy, which revealed cancer markers. Then, a battery of blood tests to confirm the diagnosis.
And here I am…
The Cancer Canary 