Facing Luekemia, Cancer of the Blood

Some of you may have wondered where I've been and why I haven't posted lately or read any of your posts. There is a reason. Besides having two broken ribs, I managed to get from a fall a couple weeks ago, I got hit with some very unpleasant health news. It is not yet confirmed, but my oncologist thinks I have leukemia. He will be doing a bone marrow test on me about Christmas time. Meanwhile they are checking my blood to see if it is going to get worse, or if it could be some form of anemia instead. I've been through a bunch in my 74 years, from spending two years in a polio hospital to floating down the river in a flood, frankly this hit me hard. I apologize for missing all your wonderful posts and will try to be more diligent in the future.

Leukemia: What is it and what to expect

Cancer has many groups and all of them begin in blood cells and other types of tissue. Leukemia is one such disease that begins in the cells of your blood and also sometime spread to your bones.

When a person is normal, their cells divide and reproduce as the old cells die and are replaced by new ones. When this process isn't working right, you might make too many new ones or the old ones don't die off as they normally should. This is a problem. Sometimes this problem is called Leukemia, and it is a form of blood cancer. If you have abnormal white cells in your blood (which are meant to fight infections) they start to fight the normal white cells and take over your red cells that help carry the oxygen to your body. Your blood can't do its work and everything goes wrong.

Leukemia can move fast or slowly depending on the type you have. There is Acute Leukemia which attacks the body quickly and Chronic Leukemia which moves more slowly. It's also divided into two groupings depending on how the white blood cells affect certain cells. These groups are the lymphoid cells and myeloid cells, although there are four primary types of Leukemia and a few that are rarer.