The fight for survival - AUL, A Leukimia story 2022
In March of 2022, I Michael James Gackle became very sick and my world was falling apart, I was overwhelmed by my illness and noticed strange things, I even was made redundant from work which in the end was both a good thing and a bad thing. I was working so hard and was so overwhelmed and underrewarded I was looking for a new job, I had gum bleed for a few days before I got made redundant for the reason of "Obstruction in the workplace" but with my loss, the business suffered multiple mistakes and hurt themselves through poor quality control and customer care. My illness I had no
idea about was slowly taking my life without me knowing, choking my bodies ability to regenerate and opening my body upto infections and diseases.
On the 22/03/2022 I ended up in the Royal Adelaide Hospital in wing 7E to be diagnosed for why my counts were so long... My diagnosis came 1-2 weeks later with it being Acute Undifferentiated Leukimia... I had no Red cells, Platelets or White cells in my bone marrow... Just duplicate of duplicates doing nothing but choking my bone marrow out.
A week after I was diagnosed with Leukimia, more bad news came my way with the unfortunate knowledge that my Nanna (Rita Christine Gackle, 85, deceased) was diagnosed with cancer on her pancrease and liver... It was as a result of melanoma spreading which she had treated 30 years prior and cured. My Nanna passed on the day I was admitted for the finnal round of my life preserving and saving treatment on the 29/08/2022.
My Treatment was consistent with Hyper-CVAD protocal and revolved around treating and killing off and putting leukimia in remission sustainably ready to go to transplant. Transplant is required as this leukimia doctors informed me had a 100% chance of reoccuring without treatment. It was painful, sickening and exhausting, and now I am at the crossing line from transplant to maybe go home soon.
During the course of treatment, I kept living the best I could, enjoying what I could and doing things that I was told I can't do, but I did because I knew about safety and how to protect myself. Your risks of infection go up, the risks of a bleed out and ending up with serious illness go up when you leave hospital or go into the real world. This world with Covid19 is still making the world so much more dangerous to my health.
This year has been tough, I've had relationships breakdown and felt expoited, used and abused and now I am being disrespected by those people, but the oppitiste is also true and bonds have not only strengthened but also I've made new friends and developed a small merchendising branch through the hospital which I found enjoyable and I intend to see where it goes for the time being.
Leukimia while making this year both hard, it made it possible for myself to claim insurance and buy my dream car incase I never got the chance to expirence it again or if i'd pass away. But life insurance has given me some capital to try and make this business work, I still have lots to learn and be strict with, but it has potential If I can upskill myself :D
Leukimia has done many good and bad things for me, and right now as of the 6/11/2022 the only thing bothering me is my mental health, where I wanna do something and see progress! I wanna do work. I wanna go home. And we are almost there.
Let's look at some positives of the year!
My dream car, Ford Fairlane ZL 1985, 4.1 MPFI
I made friends, successfully merchandised Tshirts and mugs for business while sick and created the 7E Pet which made people smile, laugh and get exited for this cute timid furry! And yes, I sold shirts and mugs! I also did a competition where entrants got a mug with candy. Georgia got hers because I owed her for buying me Bubble tea and helping me get off Total Parental nutrition. I gained knowledge here which I know won't apply in the wider real world because not everyone will pay $40.00 for a pretty simple plain shirt like Furry. And therefore I learned to look for ways to cut cost to reduce price.
I was an expirence, and for the next 2 years my job is to stay safe as possible, avoid large crowds of people and understand I might not be able to resume work for 6 months and upwards of 2 years. So I am going to try and run my side hustle business to help me fun my passion, save up and then reinvest into everything meaningful to my emmotional wellbeing with a positive return. Owning a business now has risks and I am thinking about being an employee or a co-owner to be most safest. But also considering just going with what I have and sticking to my rules. Of pay for the product and not take cash before something arrives. My Cancer may seem over, but I still have the 2 year long recovery post transplant with risks of relapse and other potential risks along the way, such as the secondary early cancer I am being treated for now in Lymphoma which was jumped on early. I also have a reactivated virus EBK and I've recently beaten and fought the BK Virus which to tell you, was never fun or plesant. Well that's all I have time for now, I may come back to review and edit the post, add more details or expand on the story. Maybe I will re-write it. But I want to share something now and be proud of my efforts through a challanging and hugely depressing time of my life. Thank you for your support, I'd love to get an E-commerce store going so I can make these products more widely avalible. Take care ;)
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