When I was diagnosed with CLL (February 2018), my labs were “good enough” and symptoms “mild enough” that no treatment was warranted…
… at the time.
You’ll take any good news you can get, right?
Who knows? Maybe I’d be one of the lucky few who goes two decades never needing treatment.
Alas, no such luck.
Fast forward two years to the summer of 2020, smack dab in the worst part of the Covid pandemic: massive shutdowns, people freaking out, conflicting medical advice, no vaccines, no treatments, conspiracy theories running amok, tons of misinformation, and divisive politicization.
I had done “okay” for a couple of years—fatigued, but pain free, and still pretty functional (all the while doing the usual dance with Lynch Syndrome)—until it began: a raft of horrible symptoms one after another: some that crept up on me, some that seemed to attack overnight, some that came on suddenly and without warning.