Author: Robin Hinnen

  • 16 January – 2nd day of chemo

    It’s early in the morning and I feel more or less okay, if a bit shaky. I had a pretty good night’s rest and no further adverse reactions from the first drug. Today I’m scheduled to receive two thirty-minute treatments spaced 12 hours apart, with the first one beginning at 10am. The drug I’ll be…

  • 15 January – Into the breach

    I start my chemo today. A small army of nurses traipsed into my room this morning a bit before 7am and I met the young woman who will be in charge of administering the various drug cocktails that will hopefully wipe all traces of the beast from my body. I’m once again feeling anxious, no…

  • 14 January – prep day

    By 7:00am this morning I was already hooked up to an ECG machine while the tech did an ultrasound of my heart. I’m getting used to carting around my ridiculously awkward IV pole because it has to go wherever I go while I’m being pumped full of fluids. My blood cell counts dropped below the…

  • 13 January, 2020 – admissions day

    After a broken night’s sleep, I heaved my carcass out of bed a little past 5:30am and began the final preparations for heading to the hospital. Lauren had given me one of her little teddy bears to take along with me and he was given a place of honor at the top of my duffle…

  • Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

    Or A.L.L. for short. Or, as I’ve begun calling it, the beast. My little world imploded just past noon on the 10th of January, 2020, when I received a phone call from my hematologist. “The news is not good. You have acute lymphoblastic leukemia.” SAY WHAT?!?? This, from a doctor who had said to me…