I Might Have Blood Cancer — And That Fucked Up My Whole Day

I had some decent plans for the day. Nothing big, but I was going to hike with the dogs, cook a nice dinner, and get some work done. I also had a few funny article ideas that I thought of yesterday that I was going to start hashing out.

Not exactly a crazy day planned, but it was mine.

Then my ‘occasionally neurotic’ brain decided to go ‘full chihuahua’ (I don’t know if it’s the breed or the owners, but I find some of them to be absolute nutters). “Let’s check to see if the labwork from your hematology appointment Tuesday has come back”. Great fucking idea, Robin.

I haven’t mentioned it on here much, but I’ve been pretty sick for the last year. I lost over 50 lbs, which to be fair the first 25 of were unwanted and good riddance. Yay me. The only problem is I wasn’t trying. Before you whack this skinny bitch with a stupid stick, I lost 25 lbs I shouldn’t have — and much of that was muscle.

On top of that my bones hurt, I get dizzy, am malnourished (despite eating a very healthy diet — and occasional full chocolate Easter bunny), am anemic, and have constant stomach problems including nausea, exhaustion, night sweats, and a myriad of other symptoms.

I also got endometriosis this year, and I already have celiac, so one more and I get the prized Canadian hat trick (or a free set of steak knives). Yay, me… this time said with a real sarcastic bitch vibe.

I went from tired, to running on fumes. Since the fumes dissipated I swear I’m running purely on sarcasm, laughs, and intravenous vats of coffee.

I’ve gone from doctor to doctor, with nobody taking me very seriously. One pawning me off on the next. Not one doctor seemed to care that I’m literally the disappearing woman. Because doctors — much like readers — don’t want to hear you bitch about being skinny.

I have been poked, prodded, scoped (both ends — you're welcome for THAT info), blood-sucked, biopsied, and scanned. Any more visits to radiology and I’ll be looking for a spider to bite me so I can become a superhero. Albeit I think I’d make a better Dead Poolette than Spider Woman.

My medical punch card has been stamped by my primary care doctor, urgent care, extended urgent medical (less urgent than urgent care but more urgent than family care), gastroenterologist, and finally rheumatologist.

Oh, and there was a psychiatrist — but good news, I have been deemed officially not-crazy. There was probably a technical term for that but I don’t speak psych-ia-trese.

The rheumatologist needed someone to get rid of me to, so she sent me to the hematologist. Or as I call him — Head Vampire. The bloodsucker of all bloodsuckers; so good that he turned pro.

I met him Tuesday, in an appointment that I would certainly call underwhelming. He knew I’m a pass-along patient. But he’s also my last stop on the doctor train — if I don’t get off here then I, well, don’t know — ride the rails alone?

He was already having the ‘well you’ve been tested for a lot and maybe need to adjust to the feelings…getting older…psychosomatic…blah blah…I’m a douche…blah blah’.

I may have ad-libbed that last part. But I’m not crazy, my mom had me checked. Also, my mom believes me, but she doesn’t have a medical degree.

It was agreed he would at least run the basic hematology tests, like a CBC panel, and check my iron. He decided he would also test me for multiple myeloma. Well, I didn’t like his ‘fine, I’ll do it’ tone — but at this point, I’ll take any help I can get.

But back to today. When I thought it was a bright idea to see if the results from the lab were back, even though my follow-up was set for 5 weeks from Tuesday.

Now, I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on Medium, but I have learned some medical basics over the last year, two years ago when I got my bionic ankle reconstruction surgery, and during my celiac disease learning curve. But I checked the labs anyways. They have a helpful range printed on the levels, and an alert flag if you aren’t within those.

My CBC was normal, my iron a little low but my anemia was relatively under control. Then I got to the tests for multiple myeloma (blood cancer). I saw a flag there and I googled “kappa free light chain” as quickly as one might be deleting their pornhub search history.

To save you some time on your next kappa-free-light-chain search, kappa is half of the dynamic plasma white-blood-cell protein duo. The other half is lambda. I know what a time saver this will be for your future, so you’re welcome.

Having high kappa or lambda levels is, well — bad. But my lambdas are fine — they be chilling and swaggy. Then I saw the next alert flag, the kappa/lambda ratio. The plasma plot thickens. It also is high (and not in the chilling, swaggy Snoop Dogg way). This is also bad.

As far as I can tell there is a very strong possibility that I have multiple myeloma, so: blood cancer. And that fucked up the nice little day I had planned.

So now you got stuck here reading this shitty story, about jackass doctors and crappy cancer (or, the potential of). I’d apologize like a good little Canadian, but I’m honestly just not in the mood. Also, you clicked on a title about cancer, I mean — spoiler alert.

Why am I writing about this instead of something to get my mind off of cancer? Well, if I tell you not to think about boobs — what are you going to think about? I’d think about cancer (at least today I would). So here I am…thinking about cancer.

One reason I am writing this is that the first person I would tell would be my mom. I’m a nerd, she’s my best friend, and she thinks I’m cool. But, as a parent and as a person, she’s a worrier. I clearly didn’t get my nonchalant, apathetic mentality from her. I can simply write this out to the ether and get it out of my brain and system. So that is what I did.

Thank you for reading this absolute shite story, and I promise — I’ll return to your regularly-scheduled programming of the humorous vibrator, adult happy meal, and Only Fans-management as a side hustle type articles next time. I’ve got a fun one coming up about sex kinks…which should reset the tone nicely.