A few more words about the CLL. I was fortunate that the CLL never really manifested in me the way it does with other people. When I started Rituxan treatments last year, I did some searches and found a CLL forum. Reading the comments from others dealing with CLL made me realize how lucky I really was. In the four years leading up to the beginning of treatment, I saw Dr. T quarterly, and with the exception of all the initial scans and biopsies, I didn't have any hospital visits to deal with.
My high white blood count was the only symptom that ever really showed itself. The white blood count peaked around 30,000, which I always thought was high, especially since "normal" ranges are between 4-11 (as I write this, I may have the top number wrong. I'll double-check that). When I began reading the experiences of other CLL patients, I was learning that my 30k was nothing compared to those who had white counts in the hundreds of thousands.
So, I felt lucky, and a little guilty, as if I wasn't fully immersed in this enough to even call myself a person with leukemia. With no other symptoms of CLL rearing up, I felt like this wasn't going to cut my life short after all.
Armed with that attitude, I set out to make sure I took better care of myself. I dropped almost 40 pounds and got myself in the best shape of my life. Along the way I met the woman who would become my best friend and my wife. Life with CLL was good, but I think it went that way because I felt like I had a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off inside of me, and while I was sure it wasn't going to go off soon, the likelihood that it would go off was still on my mind.
There was no time to waste time.
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