“And like all good men who swim too well, it takes all that I have just to cry for help”–George Michael, To Be Forgiven

It’s hard to talk–or write for that matter–about my condition. In the beginning, I thought to keep its existence confined to a relatively small group of friends and family. In fact, I’ve maintained that up until recently, when the circle of those who are aware of what I’m going through has been slowly expanding.

There were many reasons for this; at first, it was that I needed time to process the diagnosis (and the implications of it) myself. I also didn’t want to worry more people than I absolutely had to. But then my feelings became more complicated as, within weeks of my diagnosis, a dear friend passed away from cancer quite suddenly, and he was nearly ten years younger than I was. That brought an excruciating new light to my situation. Within just a few months, another friend had also passed, and I hadn’t even known he’d been sick. It was all a lot to absorb.

The condition I have is called Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS). It’s a form of bone marrow cancer. In the simplest terms, my bone marrow is failing to produce enough blood, making me extremely anemic. In all likelihood, I had this condition for many years before it was finally caught when the symptoms of the anemia became pronounced enough to notice. Even then, they may have gone ignored longer; as the anemia had worsened, my body had worked very hard to adapt, and even when I had reached a critical state, I wasn’t feeling so bad that I realized anything was serious wrong.

What probably saved my life was that I was at an appointment with my doctor to get the final approval for hearing aids. (More on that another time.) I mentioned, almost in passing, that I hadn’t had as much energy as usual the last few months and that my heart rate had been up a bit. She said I did look a little pale and that I should come back the next week for a blood test. The test showed that my hemaglobin was critically low, and they sent me immediately to the emergency room. I spent the rest of that day receiving the first of dozens of blood transfusions I would continue to get over the coming years.

Small steps. For now, I’ll leave this here.