Monday, March 18, 2013

March 12, 2013 ( copy from Facebook post)

Love you mom. If anyone can do it you can. Leadville, Leadville, Leadville. Cheryl M. Parrish
MRI done - this waiting is torture - the bone marrow biopsy is finally set for 11:00 a.m. on Thursday at St. John's hospital. This type of thing never gets easy on anybody - family, friends, or the patient - We all have our own "story" - your story is always relative, in my opinion. The ER doctor said on Saturday that I know too much, and she is correct. It's a byproduct of surviving these things, I suppose. I have done enough research on symptoms of bone marrow cancer to scare the shit out of anybody. It's no joke about how fast your life can change over a five minute blood test - from training on my mountain bike, to not riding at all, spending endless hours on the phone fighting for medical appointments and for some doctor to pay attention. From dreaming about a bike race on April 6th that I really wanted to do well on, to accepting I won't be able to ride it at all....it's tough to breath and I am TRYING to be in the moment - but my moments are not very happy now either.

Valerie Harper saying "don't show up to your funeral until you show up to your funeral" - that's sound advise. God Bless her, I now how it feels to act brave and be scared as shit - You hear it over and over about living your life like it's your last day....smelling the flowers when you walk down the alley, you may not see them again.

If you have your health, you have the one thing money cannot give you (in most cases) plenty of poor people die because they don't have medical insurance. I had to go on welfare and food stamps and stand in unemployment lines the first time I had chemo in 1990. Then I had to find the loop hole of how to get medical insurance when you are terminal and under age 65 and uninsured - Then I had to plead my own case in front a hearing office in Korea Town in 2009 in my desperate attempt to keep my insurance because I had not died in their time allowance. I won that battle.

It is depressing when you are trying to fight for your life, and on the side lines fighting for the money to pay for it. Then you are at the mercy of "the system" -- not much time for smelling the flowers, though I try - And it's not easy to take the steps we all need to take and make sure things are "in order", as they say.

Today in the POUNDING MRI cave, I kept repeating "Leadville" over and over again -

I really thought I would never have to go through this again after being in remission for so long. I am not handling it very well, but working on it.

Please keep praying. Thank you for reading this far, if you did. Love your life and love your loved ones - love the strangers you meet in your day, give them a smile and change your attitude and theirs. Life is precious, treat it with care.

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