Episode 3: Polycythemia and Me

One of the original titles I thought of for my blog was "Anxiety and Me."  And while I still have plenty to say on that subject, polycythemia is my current obsession.

But ... before I start talking about what I've learned since being diagnosed with too many red blood cells, also known as high hematocrit and high hemoglobin, primary or secondary erythremia, primary or secondary polycythemia or polycythaemia, absolute or relative polycthemia, polycythemia vera or vera rubra, or myeloproliferative disease, or Gaisböck's syndrome, or just plain old plethora (actually, these aren't all interchangeable, and I'm not sure yet which one is my particular lottery ticket)--I feel compelled to consider a more philosophical question.

Is it wrong for a person who has been diagnosed with a malignant condition to talk about said condition? 

Episode 2: Polycythemia on my Mind

So you'd think having lots of red blood cells would be a good thing--extra virility, right?  Kind of like Viagra for the blood?

Apparently not.  A few months ago my hematocrit--i.e., red blood cell count--began creeping up.  Yet one more symptom in my fifteen-year battle with chronic disease.  I won't go into all the particulars now, but future shows will certainly discuss primary aldosteronism, an adrenal disorder, and hepatitis C, the kind Naomi Judd had when she quit her singing career in the belief she was dying.  Yes, I'm blessed with both of these as well.

But today it's polycythemia on my mind, and blood tests happening out there right now in blood lab world, as mine had to be sent away because they're so specialized.  (I live in the sticks.)  I'll learn the results on August 24.  In the meantime, I can't help but search for answers on the Internet, considering I am a medical librarian, among my other job hats. 

Episode 1: Anxiety and Me

One of my favorite books as a child was Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses, and one of my favorite poems in the book was "My Shadow."

He hasn’t got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.	10
He stays so close beside me, he’s a coward you can see;
I’d think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

Okay, well, maybe the verse doesn't translate well in a blog.  Robert was quite the spoiled little brat, wasn't he?  But he was wonderful.  Of course, I've known about my shadow for as long as I can remember, including in a Jungian sense, but it amazes me that I have only at this relatively advanced age recognized that a certain shadowy coward called anxiety has made a fool of me in every sort of way, staying close beside me, throughout my life.

Pilot Episode--Why the Name?

Why name my blog a "show?"

Am I being presumptuous, thinking I might someday have so many followers that I'll have my own TV show?  Actually, I'm pretty happy in anonymity (hence, I've left my last name off the blog for now) and don't have any great longing for fame.  A little more money would be nice, but I don't see this blog's ending up with fattening my coffers.  So why do this at all?

The answer is what every writer will say:  because I have to.  Maybe we are mental exhibitionists, eager to show off the curvaceous figures our thoughts etch in our gray matter, or maybe we simply long to connect with others in a way even we don't understand.  Why do we believe perfect strangers will understand us better than the members of our family, our lovers, our friends?  Yet we write, or at least I do, to strangers.

I hope, though, that if not a single stranger takes an interest in my story, this "blog" aka TV show from this kid of the 60's will be of interest to my kids when I move on to whatever comes after this. If nothing else, I hope some of it amuses them, and some of it educates them about what I went through and how they need to approach their own health care. And maybe leave another type of wisdom for them here and there.

The kids don't appear much not because I don't love them more than life itself but because I want to preserve THEIR privacy as much as I can. I wrote an article about my son's experiences with bipolar disorder. It was published, and it was well received, and I'd had his completely lucid permission to use it, but sometimes I wish I'd have at least changed his first name.  Our last names are different, however, so I'd hoped to preserve his privacy that way.

Nevertheless, when I speak of them or others, I'm most likely using substitute  names for that reason.