MDS, the beginning

For over years, my health had been pretty great.  No surgeries, major illnesses, only a couple of broken bones and the ability to fight off any cold in about 3 days.  Great health, that is, until mid April of this year.  A routine blood test at a new doctor led to another blood test and a recommendation to see a hematologist who performed even more blood tests that revealed I might have something called MDS, a malady neither my wife Lu or I had never heard of.

What I did not know at the time, was that my blood levels, namely red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets had actually been decreasing over several years.  The decreased counts plus some cells in my blood that should not be there indicated that I had MDS.  (see link on What my MDS looks like).  So Lu and I went to the Source Of All Knowledge, namely the internet to see what this MDS thing is all about and were quite appalled.  Without going into a bunch of complicated clinical terms, we found out that MDS is
1.  Mostly incurable
2.  Almost always life shortening
3.  Is defined as a cancer that sometimes leads to leukemia.

A prognosis like this, needless to say, suddenly changes many things in your life – what is important, what should we be doing, why me etc as well as instilling a bunch of rather unhealthy emotions  such as fear, hopelessness, sadness, and so on.  Our lives seemed to be suddenly turned around and we did nothing other than contemplate the progression of the MDS in my life.  (If you wish to learn more on MDS, check out American Cancer Society – MDS information and Aplastic Anemia and MDS foundation in the Links section. )

Although I am the eternal optimist, I now find this optimism challenged.  But I still find that optimism and inspiration can be found; sometimes you seek and find it; sometimes it just miraculously appears as it did a few days after learning about my MDS.  I was reading Joshua in the bible and one key phrase kept appearing: “Be strong and courageous” just the words I needed now.  If any time I needed to be “Strong and courageous”, now is certainly the time.  Of course, implicit in this is that one must be Strong and courageous in the Lord, not just on your own.  I know that I alone don’t have the strength for this journey that I have been put on.  Yes, I am pretty much without any symptoms right now, but I know that sometime things will change and I’ll need even more strength and courage then.

So you may ask why I am writing this blog, a fair question.  There are several reasons:
1.  Keep friends, family and possibly other MDS sufferers abreast of my condition.
2.  Raise awareness of MDS
3.  Give encouragement to those going through MDS or other tough times in life.
4.  To keep myself focused on being an encourager and staying positive through this chapter in my life.

Thank you for reading my blog and please feel free to pass this along to whoever you feel may need to read this.  Comments encouraged.

God’s peace