Leukemia One Woman’s Battle For Survival

By Elizabeth May Lovelace

Come with me and journey down the most amazing path of a LEUKEMIA WARRIOR’S battle against the horrendous and mysterious blood cancer, Leukemia. I have been in a battle for my life for over 6 years now. Leukemia One Woman's Battle For Survival is the real true story of my battle with leukemia and my struggle for survival. I kept a faith diary when I was first diagnosed with Leukemia and I have included some of the personal entries from my faith diary in Leukemia One Woman's Battle For Survival.
As you read Leukemia One Woman's Battle For Survival, you will get an up close and personal look in the life of a Leukemia patient; her pain, her battle plans for survival, her experience with her doctors and much more! You will be able to walk with me from the minute of my diagnosis of Leukemia to my present day of survival and learn all about my battle plans and the weapons I used to fight the awful battle of the blood cancer, Leukemia.
You will discover the new medicines and treatments for Leukemia which include:
*Gleevec (Imatinib)
*Tasigna (Nilotinib)
*Sprycel (Dasatinib)
Learn how Leukemia is diagnosed through Bone Marrow Aspirations, Blood Analysis including CBCs and CMPs and other blood work your doctor deems necessary.
If you or someone you love is in a battle against cancer of any kind, but especially the blood cancers, then you will relish Leukemia One Woman's Battle For Survival. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it, because even though it brought back painful memories, if it helps just one person to battle this disease, then I am happy to offer it up.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elizabeth May Lovelace
• Release date: Feb 7, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458006165

Book preview

Leukemia

One Woman’s Battle

For Survival

By:

Elizabeth May Lovelace

Published By:

Sheen Publishing at Smashwords

Leukemia One Woman’s Battle For Survival

Copyright © 2011 by Elizabeth May Lovelace

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Forward

This is one book I would never have thought I would have to write. Cancer? That is only a disease someone else gets, not me! I had lived 66 years, married, had 5 children and lots of grandchildren and had always been healthy. The thought of acquiring a fatal disease was the farthest thing from my mind on that life-changing day when the doctor announced that I probably had leukemia. No one can ever tell you how you will feel when you hear those three little but huge words, YOU HAVE CANCER. To this day I can't tell you what it felt to be told you have cancer. Shock would be the closest thing that I can think of that would describe that fateful day in my life. As I think back and ponder that day, I can remember feeling numb. I just don't think the real me was there experiencing all I had to go through the weeks and years after being diagnosed with leukemia. Yes, after all these years I still feel numb knowing I have cancer.

Table of Contents

Chapter I: The Fateful Day That I Discovered I Had Leukemia

Chapter II: The Hospital

Chapter III: Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia CML - What Is It?

Chapter IV: Entries From My Faith Diary

Chapter V: My Treatment With Gleevec (Imatinib)

Chapter VI: Five Years Later

Chapter VII: My Treatment With Tasigna

Chapter VIII: Conclusion for Tasigna Treatment for CML

Chapter IX: My Treatment With Sprycel and The New Cancer Hospital

Chapter X: First Visit at a Major Cancer Hospital

Conclusion

Chapter I

The Fateful Day That I Discovered I Had Leukemia

I had been to visit my daughter and took a plane trip for the visit. I didn't think much of it at the time, but I became very ill while I was there. My heart was pounding the whole time and I was glad to get back home. After getting back home, I was so tired I couldn't even walk around my yard without becoming extremely exhausted. Here are the events as they unfolded that fateful year.

January 21, 2004---I was having some very bad health problems. I had had a bad night with my heart pounding all night. I had been really tired and my son talked me into going to see my doctor.

January 22, 2004---Went to see my doctor; my heart was pounding and my pulse was very high. The doctor insisted on doing a complete blood work; I told him I didn’t need it, but he insisted.

January 23, 2004--- My Primary Care doctor calls me saying that my blood counts are way too high.

He has made an appointment with a hematologist, and he wants me to go right away. I ask him if I can wait and he says NO! My son insists I go also, so off I go. I do not think anything is wrong with me; I have never had anything major as far as illness goes, and all the women in my family are long-lived.

January 23, 24---My son and his girlfriend take me to the hematologist, and I was called into his office.

As I go in alone, the doctor looks at me and says, You sure are brave coming here alone. I should have suspected something right then but no, I still had no fears and told the doctor my son and his girlfriend was waiting for me in the waiting room.

He has his blood nurse take a sample of my blood; I gave it up freely, not knowing this was the first of hundreds of blood test on down the line. Sure enough, he came back in and told me my counts were way too high and that he needed to do a Bone Marrow Aspiration. Silly me, I didn’t have a clue as to what he was talking about and was led unknowingly into a room with an examining bed and ask to take off my clothes and lie down face