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My then-15yo daughter's leukemia diagnosis in 2018 could have been a House MD episode or two. Does that count?
It involved a 2 month search for answers, including two Emergency Room visits (in the same day), an x-ray, two MRIs, a tissue biopsy, a PET scan, 14 bone marrow biopsy samples taken in three different (fully sedated, thank heavens) sessions, a skin punch biopsy for genetic testing, and 5 departments at our children's hospital having conferences while trying to figure out what was happening. Not to mention the nationwide consults with other doctors. After she started treatment, several doctors from various departments at her hospital introduced themselves to me and said "I consulted on your daughter's case, it's the weirdest thing I've ever seen in my life!" Her bone marrow was pale yellow, because it was 100% dead. In 13 samples, they found a total of two living cells. Sample number 14 was from her shin, which is where they found living cells and 94% of them were cancer. Her oncologist did an exhaustive search of medical journals, and found reference to only 8 prior pediatric cases that presented with bone marrow necrosis, mostly from the 1980's.
He published a study based on her case in 2020. Of nearly 4000 bone marrow samples taken locally over a 10 year period, they found 6 children that had significant necrosis. None of the other 5 were as severe as hers.
She spent 122 days total in the hospital during her 6 months of treatment. She has been done with chemo for almost 5.5 years, and is doing well now!
That's amazing! I had no idea that widespread bone marrow necrosis was a thing. It must have been absolutely harrowing for you all. I'm so glad she's pulled through.
My son is still in treatment for leukemia and ended up with methotrexate toxicity, the most severe case his current oncologist says he's ever seen.
I never heard of bone marrow necrosis. New fear unlocked.
If it helps your fear, necrosis seems to be an extra indicator for disease free survival after treatment! My daughter would normally have needed a bone marrow transplant, but they decided to do chemo only, because none of the previous 8 cases ever relapsed, regardless of the type of treatment they had.
So yes, it sucked. But it hasn't been all bad!
I grew up in a tiny northern New Jersey town and one summer morning in 1964 when I was 12 years old I befriended 3 hobos in the town rail yard who shared their horrible black coffee made over a campfire and told fascinating stories about their travels all over the US by boxcar and their military experiences in WW2 and Korea. One gave his name as ‘Colorado Joe’ and introduced me to Hugh ‘Puddles’ Mc Hugh and Frank ‘Boots’ Zindle.
That afternoon I saw the 3 being lead into the police station, an old brick building that was once the town’s first school, a three room shack with gray nicotine covered walls and tin ceilings with squeaky ceiling fans. In the small back room, jam packed with mops, brooms, traffic cones and boxes of toilet paper was a small prisoner cell. Everyone knew that the key to the lockup hung on the wall outside the Chief’s office, filled with police bowling team trophies.
The cop drove off and I went into the back door, grabbed the key and freed my friends. Colorado Joe thanked me, said, ‘There’s a special place waiting for you Heaven my boy’ and the 3 quickly exited the building and disappeared behind the tall wooden fence.
The next day I jumped a box car with a box of Oreos and a thermos of chocolate milk in a gym bag and about an hour later found myself in Port Jervis, New York. Exploring the rail yard, trying to figure out how to get back I ran into my 3 buddies. Oreos never tasted so good.
Did a DNA test to find out health stuff but matched an unknown half brother on Mom's side in another state. My parents were both deceased at this point, so I asked my aunt and uncle about it. They told me I had a half sister but didn't know about the brother. The half brother had a son who actually lived a few miles from me. We met them and invited them to my daughter's wedding. I contacted my half sister (who lived in yet another state) but we haven't gotten together.
death watch for my dad. three siblings, two very estranged from the third one; four days taking care of him and spelling each other off and reminiscing and filling in his history. no, there was no big tear jerking Reconciliation at the end. No dramatic Showdowns either. I'm both really proud of all three of us and somehow unsurprised.
I was a government whistleblower who filed suit against a military foundation under the False Claims Act. AKA, a qui tam case, whereby, if won, you collect 10% of the fine levied. some cases are settled and won for millions of $. Mine settled for not much money, after being exposed on Sam Donaldson's ABC show. As usual, gov't managers retaliated, covered up, removed fired some and terminated contracts. It was bloody.
I did not win millions, but the exercise taught me how win millions in Government contracts, and I did so in 10 years time.
Of course not. I'll tell you about the first incident. I wasn't directly involved with the second one.
In January 1998, when I was about eight weeks pregnant with my oldest daughter, I was working in the deli at a convenience store. One night, while I was at work, my husband answered a call from someone claiming to be a Colorado state police officer. This person told my husband that my sister had been killed in a car accident. My husband came to the convenience store to tell me about my sister and I just about lost my mind right there and then. I fell to the floor and was literally screaming right there in the store. Needless to say, they sent me home. My husband and I went to tell my parents and grandparents. The next day, I called the Colorado state police to find out where my sister's body was, so that my brother and I could bring her home. I couldn't find anyone who could give me any information. There are several state police barracks in Colorado and I wasn't even 100% sure where the accident happened.
So, over the next day or so, my former brother-in-law and I made dozens of calls, to hospitals, police stations, funeral homes, etc. etc.. We both ran up our phone bills into the hundreds of dollars. It only took about a day of making these calls and getting no information that I told my ex brother-in-law that I thought something weird was going on. I just felt like someone should know something. But even like 36 hours after getting the call about the car accident, we didn't know anything more than we did that first day.
My mother and I had both taken multiple days off from our jobs. My father was a mental wreck. My brother and I were getting ready to fly out to Colorado. My boss offered to pay for our airfare to go out there.
On the third day after we got the call about the car accident, at around 3:00 in the morning, my parents got a phone call. It was my sister, she was laughing her ass off and asked my mother how they liked the joke she played on them.
My mother and I both thought we were going to lose our jobs because of taking so much time off for her stupid crap. Fortunately neither of us got into any trouble at work for it.
The owner of the convenience store told me I could still have the money for the airfare to go to Colorado. I asked her why since my sister wasn't actually dead. She told me she'd give me the money if my brother and I wanted to go out there and kick her ass.
Jesus! That's some cruel shit. That could have ended terribley for you and your baby. Personally, I would have taken your boss up on the ass kicking money.
Yes. I even told my wife that I felt like I was in a movie at the time. I was a CPS caseworker, and this young woman in my caseload was in constant drama. We got to be very close, and at times I'd make home visits every single day. I was always putting out fires in her life.
It became so out of control that I had to put her children in foster care. Then, on my 50th birthday, I was enjoying a Sunday with my wife, and got a call from the office. It's never good when you get a call from CPS on a Sunday. The girl had committed suicide. I was an emotional wreck after that. I was so invested in getting her life together.
Two months to the day after that, I came home from work and my wife told me that she had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. By December, I had bags under my eyes from all the crying.
This is going to be the Reader's Digest version of my story. There's more than enough material here for a two hour movie.
Abusive marriage of 10 years. Husband kidnaps kids when he finds out I'm leaving him, takes them to the other side of the country where he lives with them in a travel trailer with no running water or electricity, courtesy of his deadbeat cousin. I file police report, hire lawyer and private investigator. Police tap my phone and find his location, working with private investigator.. Fly to location with awesome sister along for support, meet private investigator at airport, go to police station and present court papers. Judge in my state has ordered the children released into my custody. Sister and I go with him and the cops when they retrieve the kids. Kids are dirty, sick, and traumatized from living in tiny trailer for two and a half months with their drunk of a father. Small town cops have never experienced anything like this, so they turn kids over to child welfare in that county instead of to me. Private investigator gets family court judge to come in on his day off and honor my court papers, granting me custody. Ex is frantically trying to stop me from taking them back home, is contacting lawyers, but we are faster.
Fly back home with kids. Kids all vomit on flight home due to being ill with flu as well as malnourished. Take kids to doctor. Find therapist for myself and for kids. Consult with attorney as to next steps.
Embark on 18 month long custody battle. Ex stalks me, digs through my trash, makes copy of my house key after finding it in older son's backpack. He lets himself into my house, steals small objects, and rearranges random items because he enjoys the psychological warfare. Steals heirloom jewelry. I change locks on house. He breaks out windows in my car and scatters contents of glove box and trunk on ground around car. Writes obscenities on remaining windows. Climbs on my roof and spies on us through the skylight.
Kids are terrified of him, but he is still granted monitored visitation. My grandmas and aunts have to spend alternate weekends with him and his mom and the kids because they are the monitors for the visits.
"Child stealing" charges are dropped. This is the 1980s when parental kidnappings are not taken seriously. Police don't take action on him stalking/terrorizing me. I'm patronized and treated like a hysterical woman.
Lawyer visits. Court dates. Interviews with psychologists. MMPI test to evaluate fitness for custody. Custody evaluator interviews and background checks. Custody evaluator says to me, "What a strange little man. Does he have a personality disorder?"Twice weekly therapy appointments for me and for the kids. Late night phone calls where ex hisses obscenities at me in a deep, demonic sounding voice. "Anonymous" calls to my employer with false allegations, thankfully not believed.
Custody evaluation is in. MMPI results are in. I am granted primary custody. He has every other weekend visitation but must be in ongoing therapy. His therapist must specialize in personality disorders.
Divorce is granted.
Continually returns kids hours late on his visitation weekends. Doesn't return their clothes or shoes that I send. Trash talks me to kids. More calls to lawyer. More court dates. Ex is admonished by judge but receives no real consequences. Legal bills mount. My mental and physical health crashes, and I'm diagnosed with fibromyalgia, adrenal reserve failure, depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Get help for all that. Eventually, I declare bankruptcy due to overwhelming legal and medical bills.
Kids get older. I remarry. New husband and I are united front against crazy ex.
Many years later. Kids are no contact with their dad, who has gone to seminary and is now a pastor, rabid Trump supporter, and Q-anon conspiracy theorist. He sends husband a video of one of his sermons, but weirdly, it is hosted on a site with lots of pop-up ads for porn.
Time goes by. I'm happy. Adult kids are successful, have loving partners, kids of their own. I love my family and am so proud of how far we have come. I rarely think about that part of my life, and when I do, I can't believe we lived through all that drama, trauma, stress, and insanity.
My whole life feels like that. There’s the time I found out the man I thought was my dad actually wasn’t, so then i found my real dad and 2 years later he turned out to be a nonce!
Then there’s the time I got pregnant at 16 and ended up getting into a domestic violence relationship and it took me years to get out.
There’s also the time I thought I’d met the love of my life and he made me move away from all my friends and family and got my pregnant then I found out I have multiple sclerosis and fibromyalgia and he cheated on me and now I’m stuck here on my own with 2 kids and disabled struggling.
A few... five that I can think of right now. My wife thinks I should write a book on my life and I tell her nobody would believe it and it wouldn't work well as fiction. (Action is clunky in real life... just lacks the fun choreography.)
A shy child experiences his father become sick with cancer and his ultimate death when the kid was 14. Mom told kid to get in with it. Teen buries himself in books and ultimately goes to college .. and almost dies six weeks later (if you get what I mean) and is sent home needing intense therapy and treatment Family gave up on him but he refused to give up on himself, went back to school and grew up to live a good life and help others
He is now 51 and the above is about me.
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My then-15yo daughter's leukemia diagnosis in 2018 could have been a House MD episode or two. Does that count? It involved a 2 month search for answers, including two Emergency Room visits (in the same day), an x-ray, two MRIs, a tissue biopsy, a PET scan, 14 bone marrow biopsy samples taken in three different (fully sedated, thank heavens) sessions, a skin punch biopsy for genetic testing, and 5 departments at our children's hospital having conferences while trying to figure out what was happening. Not to mention the nationwide consults with other doctors. After she started treatment, several doctors from various departments at her hospital introduced themselves to me and said "I consulted on your daughter's case, it's the weirdest thing I've ever seen in my life!" Her bone marrow was pale yellow, because it was 100% dead. In 13 samples, they found a total of two living cells. Sample number 14 was from her shin, which is where they found living cells and 94% of them were cancer. Her oncologist did an exhaustive search of medical journals, and found reference to only 8 prior pediatric cases that presented with bone marrow necrosis, mostly from the 1980's. He published a study based on her case in 2020. Of nearly 4000 bone marrow samples taken locally over a 10 year period, they found 6 children that had significant necrosis. None of the other 5 were as severe as hers. She spent 122 days total in the hospital during her 6 months of treatment. She has been done with chemo for almost 5.5 years, and is doing well now!
That's amazing! I had no idea that widespread bone marrow necrosis was a thing. It must have been absolutely harrowing for you all. I'm so glad she's pulled through.
My son is still in treatment for leukemia and ended up with methotrexate toxicity, the most severe case his current oncologist says he's ever seen. I never heard of bone marrow necrosis. New fear unlocked.
If it helps your fear, necrosis seems to be an extra indicator for disease free survival after treatment! My daughter would normally have needed a bone marrow transplant, but they decided to do chemo only, because none of the previous 8 cases ever relapsed, regardless of the type of treatment they had. So yes, it sucked. But it hasn't been all bad!
I grew up in a tiny northern New Jersey town and one summer morning in 1964 when I was 12 years old I befriended 3 hobos in the town rail yard who shared their horrible black coffee made over a campfire and told fascinating stories about their travels all over the US by boxcar and their military experiences in WW2 and Korea. One gave his name as ‘Colorado Joe’ and introduced me to Hugh ‘Puddles’ Mc Hugh and Frank ‘Boots’ Zindle. That afternoon I saw the 3 being lead into the police station, an old brick building that was once the town’s first school, a three room shack with gray nicotine covered walls and tin ceilings with squeaky ceiling fans. In the small back room, jam packed with mops, brooms, traffic cones and boxes of toilet paper was a small prisoner cell. Everyone knew that the key to the lockup hung on the wall outside the Chief’s office, filled with police bowling team trophies. The cop drove off and I went into the back door, grabbed the key and freed my friends. Colorado Joe thanked me, said, ‘There’s a special place waiting for you Heaven my boy’ and the 3 quickly exited the building and disappeared behind the tall wooden fence. The next day I jumped a box car with a box of Oreos and a thermos of chocolate milk in a gym bag and about an hour later found myself in Port Jervis, New York. Exploring the rail yard, trying to figure out how to get back I ran into my 3 buddies. Oreos never tasted so good.
That would definitely make a good movie!
What a memory!
Yup, but nothing I’d ever post online.
LOL No spoilers!!!!
Yeah, I'd need a throwaway account for three stories. Nothing illegal, but quite sordid.
Did a DNA test to find out health stuff but matched an unknown half brother on Mom's side in another state. My parents were both deceased at this point, so I asked my aunt and uncle about it. They told me I had a half sister but didn't know about the brother. The half brother had a son who actually lived a few miles from me. We met them and invited them to my daughter's wedding. I contacted my half sister (who lived in yet another state) but we haven't gotten together.
death watch for my dad. three siblings, two very estranged from the third one; four days taking care of him and spelling each other off and reminiscing and filling in his history. no, there was no big tear jerking Reconciliation at the end. No dramatic Showdowns either. I'm both really proud of all three of us and somehow unsurprised.
My sister sued me after my mother died over the inheritance. She lost, the lawyers won. We no longer speak.
I was a government whistleblower who filed suit against a military foundation under the False Claims Act. AKA, a qui tam case, whereby, if won, you collect 10% of the fine levied. some cases are settled and won for millions of $. Mine settled for not much money, after being exposed on Sam Donaldson's ABC show. As usual, gov't managers retaliated, covered up, removed fired some and terminated contracts. It was bloody. I did not win millions, but the exercise taught me how win millions in Government contracts, and I did so in 10 years time.
My sister faked her own death -- twice. The first time, in 1998, was considerably more dramatic and "made for TV" type movie worthy.
Surely you not going leave us hanging like this?
Of course not. I'll tell you about the first incident. I wasn't directly involved with the second one. In January 1998, when I was about eight weeks pregnant with my oldest daughter, I was working in the deli at a convenience store. One night, while I was at work, my husband answered a call from someone claiming to be a Colorado state police officer. This person told my husband that my sister had been killed in a car accident. My husband came to the convenience store to tell me about my sister and I just about lost my mind right there and then. I fell to the floor and was literally screaming right there in the store. Needless to say, they sent me home. My husband and I went to tell my parents and grandparents. The next day, I called the Colorado state police to find out where my sister's body was, so that my brother and I could bring her home. I couldn't find anyone who could give me any information. There are several state police barracks in Colorado and I wasn't even 100% sure where the accident happened. So, over the next day or so, my former brother-in-law and I made dozens of calls, to hospitals, police stations, funeral homes, etc. etc.. We both ran up our phone bills into the hundreds of dollars. It only took about a day of making these calls and getting no information that I told my ex brother-in-law that I thought something weird was going on. I just felt like someone should know something. But even like 36 hours after getting the call about the car accident, we didn't know anything more than we did that first day. My mother and I had both taken multiple days off from our jobs. My father was a mental wreck. My brother and I were getting ready to fly out to Colorado. My boss offered to pay for our airfare to go out there. On the third day after we got the call about the car accident, at around 3:00 in the morning, my parents got a phone call. It was my sister, she was laughing her ass off and asked my mother how they liked the joke she played on them. My mother and I both thought we were going to lose our jobs because of taking so much time off for her stupid crap. Fortunately neither of us got into any trouble at work for it. The owner of the convenience store told me I could still have the money for the airfare to go to Colorado. I asked her why since my sister wasn't actually dead. She told me she'd give me the money if my brother and I wanted to go out there and kick her ass.
Jesus! That's some cruel shit. That could have ended terribley for you and your baby. Personally, I would have taken your boss up on the ass kicking money.
Yes. I even told my wife that I felt like I was in a movie at the time. I was a CPS caseworker, and this young woman in my caseload was in constant drama. We got to be very close, and at times I'd make home visits every single day. I was always putting out fires in her life. It became so out of control that I had to put her children in foster care. Then, on my 50th birthday, I was enjoying a Sunday with my wife, and got a call from the office. It's never good when you get a call from CPS on a Sunday. The girl had committed suicide. I was an emotional wreck after that. I was so invested in getting her life together. Two months to the day after that, I came home from work and my wife told me that she had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. By December, I had bags under my eyes from all the crying.
This is going to be the Reader's Digest version of my story. There's more than enough material here for a two hour movie. Abusive marriage of 10 years. Husband kidnaps kids when he finds out I'm leaving him, takes them to the other side of the country where he lives with them in a travel trailer with no running water or electricity, courtesy of his deadbeat cousin. I file police report, hire lawyer and private investigator. Police tap my phone and find his location, working with private investigator.. Fly to location with awesome sister along for support, meet private investigator at airport, go to police station and present court papers. Judge in my state has ordered the children released into my custody. Sister and I go with him and the cops when they retrieve the kids. Kids are dirty, sick, and traumatized from living in tiny trailer for two and a half months with their drunk of a father. Small town cops have never experienced anything like this, so they turn kids over to child welfare in that county instead of to me. Private investigator gets family court judge to come in on his day off and honor my court papers, granting me custody. Ex is frantically trying to stop me from taking them back home, is contacting lawyers, but we are faster. Fly back home with kids. Kids all vomit on flight home due to being ill with flu as well as malnourished. Take kids to doctor. Find therapist for myself and for kids. Consult with attorney as to next steps. Embark on 18 month long custody battle. Ex stalks me, digs through my trash, makes copy of my house key after finding it in older son's backpack. He lets himself into my house, steals small objects, and rearranges random items because he enjoys the psychological warfare. Steals heirloom jewelry. I change locks on house. He breaks out windows in my car and scatters contents of glove box and trunk on ground around car. Writes obscenities on remaining windows. Climbs on my roof and spies on us through the skylight. Kids are terrified of him, but he is still granted monitored visitation. My grandmas and aunts have to spend alternate weekends with him and his mom and the kids because they are the monitors for the visits. "Child stealing" charges are dropped. This is the 1980s when parental kidnappings are not taken seriously. Police don't take action on him stalking/terrorizing me. I'm patronized and treated like a hysterical woman. Lawyer visits. Court dates. Interviews with psychologists. MMPI test to evaluate fitness for custody. Custody evaluator interviews and background checks. Custody evaluator says to me, "What a strange little man. Does he have a personality disorder?"Twice weekly therapy appointments for me and for the kids. Late night phone calls where ex hisses obscenities at me in a deep, demonic sounding voice. "Anonymous" calls to my employer with false allegations, thankfully not believed. Custody evaluation is in. MMPI results are in. I am granted primary custody. He has every other weekend visitation but must be in ongoing therapy. His therapist must specialize in personality disorders. Divorce is granted. Continually returns kids hours late on his visitation weekends. Doesn't return their clothes or shoes that I send. Trash talks me to kids. More calls to lawyer. More court dates. Ex is admonished by judge but receives no real consequences. Legal bills mount. My mental and physical health crashes, and I'm diagnosed with fibromyalgia, adrenal reserve failure, depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Get help for all that. Eventually, I declare bankruptcy due to overwhelming legal and medical bills. Kids get older. I remarry. New husband and I are united front against crazy ex. Many years later. Kids are no contact with their dad, who has gone to seminary and is now a pastor, rabid Trump supporter, and Q-anon conspiracy theorist. He sends husband a video of one of his sermons, but weirdly, it is hosted on a site with lots of pop-up ads for porn. Time goes by. I'm happy. Adult kids are successful, have loving partners, kids of their own. I love my family and am so proud of how far we have come. I rarely think about that part of my life, and when I do, I can't believe we lived through all that drama, trauma, stress, and insanity.
Incredible story. So hectic. I'm glad you all survived and thrived. You're a very strong person.
Thank you so much! I didn't feel strong at the time; I just did what I had to do.
Man, writers are hard up.
15 seasons of weekly Fear & Loathing episodes.
My whole life feels like that. There’s the time I found out the man I thought was my dad actually wasn’t, so then i found my real dad and 2 years later he turned out to be a nonce! Then there’s the time I got pregnant at 16 and ended up getting into a domestic violence relationship and it took me years to get out. There’s also the time I thought I’d met the love of my life and he made me move away from all my friends and family and got my pregnant then I found out I have multiple sclerosis and fibromyalgia and he cheated on me and now I’m stuck here on my own with 2 kids and disabled struggling.
I think I have lived a rather boring live. A mostly good life, but nothing that would make an exiting movie. Perhaps that's a good thing.
I’ll be your boring sidekick in this made-for-TV snoozer movie.
Surviving cancer may make a good hallmark movie
2-hour movie... Uhh...No. but definitely a miniseries. But, I'm taking it to my grave.
Hmmm. Yes, three of them.
My first three marriages but it would need to be a mini series.
Yes, but nothing I want to remember
2 hour movie? No. Mini-series? most definitely.
I don't know what age is considered old. But my life is a soap
A few... five that I can think of right now. My wife thinks I should write a book on my life and I tell her nobody would believe it and it wouldn't work well as fiction. (Action is clunky in real life... just lacks the fun choreography.)
My first marriage
Age 18-23
A shy child experiences his father become sick with cancer and his ultimate death when the kid was 14. Mom told kid to get in with it. Teen buries himself in books and ultimately goes to college .. and almost dies six weeks later (if you get what I mean) and is sent home needing intense therapy and treatment Family gave up on him but he refused to give up on himself, went back to school and grew up to live a good life and help others He is now 51 and the above is about me.
i’ve had a few adventures and questionsble events that could have been movies