Where it all started

My life prior to leukemia was fairly non-descript. I grew up in a stable home, went to high school, and then college. Decided I didn’t want to use my degree but rather be a personal trainer and own a gym.

Covid royally fucked all that up. When they shut down everything, gyms were on that list. A portion of my clients were geriatrics as well. So even when they re-opened the gyms, some of my clients were still hesitant to return (and rightfully so). In fact, I actually persuaded one client to wait a couple of weeks before returning just to make sure things really were safe for them to return.

While I was temporarily displaced, I got a part time job. That part time job turned into a full time job. Unwilling to give up training, I did both. I worked a full time job and then left that to go train clients for a couple more hours. I love training. It’s in my blood.

So it should come to no surprise that I was tired. Working 2 jobs and still making time to train myself, I just thought that being tired came with the territory. It was around December of 2020, when things really came to a head.

My mom and wife noticed that I had a lump on my Adam’s Apple. I had noticed it but like any red-blooded male, I was in denial and thought it would go away if I ignored it. It didn’t go away. At the urging of my family, I made a call to my dr. They were still doing appointments by phone. By the time my appointment rolled around (it was a couple days after I called to get one), I was also experiencing some weird pain in the left side of my abdomen. Right underneath the bottom rib. I mentioned that at my appointment, but it really seemed like my doctor was focused on my throat. Or so I thought. As routine, my doctor ordered some blood work to be done.

Before my blood work came back, I ended up getting a nose bleed at work. Now nose bleeds were pretty common for me. I’ve had some issues with those my entire life. A couple years ago, I had some really bad ones that landed me in the ER and two surgeries. Those were all on my right nostril. This particular nose bleed was on the left side, the side that had very rarely (if ever) given me problems. So here I am at working, pouring blood out of my nose and all the usual tricks aren’t working. My boss offers, and I accept, to take me to the ER.

For the sake of brevity (HA!) I’ll continue this in my next post.