I appear to have Cancer

[Buster's Uncle]

How's your immune system doing lately?

[E_T]

I have been taking my meds, for one thing...

My last blood draw (3.5 months ago) had viral load as Undetectable (as it has been for a while) and TCell count at about 260 (IIRC, might be less, but definitely over 200).

Thing is, as I have dipped down really low, twice now (over the years), I am much more at risk for anything than if I had not been.

One Doctor put it this way:
Think of your TCells/Immune system as a Football Team.  You have your veteran players whom make up your first string lineup.  Then you have the not so good players, that you have to send out if too many of the first string guys get hurt, etc.  They aren't as well seasoned or just not so good at playing.  Then you have your third string guys, your rookies and has been players that make up the remainder if the team.

Your most experienced team members have knowledge of all of the little ills that your body has fought off since you were born.  Use the same analogies for the rest of the team...

Now, in the case of your TCells dipping below 200 (into AIDS range), what happens is that you take your first sting guys all out and shoot them dead.  Your now working off the 2nd string guys.  Have it happen again and your now using the 3rd String exclusively...  Doesn't matter if it bounces back above 200, you've lost that experience base for infection fighting that has built up since birth.  And a Child can fight off things much better than an older adult...

Which is one reason that I was sort of expecting this to happen, as I am more susceptible to things, like strange cancers.  This one is already kind of strange, according to the one doctor.  The Anal Pap Smear showed it as Anal Cancer (which the biopsy confirmed).  But the location of the Cancer, which is in the Rectal Cavity, then it should have been Rectal Cancer (which is treated differently and would have required sectioning the bowl and me using a colostomy bag afterwards).  There are other things that I am suspecting, but we will see over the next few weeks.

Now, I already have an ID (Infectious Diseases) appointment with Blood draw set for two weeks from now.  I will be doing the Blood draw for that Appt this Wend (the day of my MRI).  I will also be getting ID to step up the frequency of appointments over the year while I am being treated for the Cancer.  I will also be asking about any prophylactics that they might recommend, too... 

So, moving forward, we will have a very good baseline, prior to my cancer treatment.  Which we can see if we need too keep any eye on anything and hopefully stomp on it before it becomes a problem...

[Buster's Uncle]

I would think a better analogy would be a school team all graduating, leaving the coach to make do next year with green freshmen of equal talent but no experience; really, a green coach, too.  Sounds like all the antibody templates accumulated over a lifetime get lost - which I didn't know.

[Geo]

I'd have thought the immune system spreads out acquired information on how to combat infections to newly created blood cells?
At least that's how I thought white blood cells worked?

[Buster's Uncle]

When antibodies encounter something new their programming tells them isn't part of The Body, they take a template of it back to the spleen or lymph nodes or something, and the next time the invader turns up, the system has a specific antibody design waiting.  Apparently, having your T-cell count dip below 200 wipes those specialist designs out, so you can get chickenpox again.

[E_T]

One reason that the better of the doctors like to have their patients reboost some of the more important vaccines (I have a vaccine card with me in my wallet that I update with every one I get).

The Immune system is a very complex "organ".  It is made up of many parts.  The T4 Helper Cells are one part (which the HIV attacks) and work in concert with the rest, mostly the T8 Cells (one of the blood draw metrics that is always looked at is the T4/T8 percentage ratio). 

Kemo & Radiation Therapies DO have an effect on the immune system, but in a much different way than the way that HIV does.  Which is why I will be having my ID doctors also keeping a closer eye on me while I'm in treatment.  I don't need to be leaving myself open for a 1-2 punch...

[Buster's Uncle]

No you certainly don't - and it stands to reason that vaccinations would be incredibly helpful forgetting back some key templates by the very nature of the thing, but I didn't know it and probably wouldn't have worked it out.  This has been educational.

[Buster's Uncle]

...I still feel bad about having so little to say to try to be comforting after I exceeded myself over your sister - just, the latter is a thing I'd wrestled with too much myself in the previous decade, and your current --- danger is something I can only imagine, and thus, have no informed sense of how it feels and what would sound genuinely comforting, or trite, or even offensive.  I think I cannot go wrong in saying that I've worried, not least out a sincere desire to somehow be helpful and offer comfort - the context I've provided taking it out of the likelihood of triteness.









SO - given all that, and on an inexcusably crass note, give me a feel for how you'd tend to take the inexcusably poor taste of making butt-jokes.  I would never go there absent a high-sign from you to proceed, all this being offered in the humble spirit of I don't know for sure you'd be offended, and sometimes gallows humor being a coping mechanism and a way to chip in to cheering you up.  I apologize in advance, and will never bring up this very wrong thing ever again absent your encouragement.

[E_T]

BU, your recent issue at home (as per your other thread) has left you tip-toeing around the thing.

First off, you have read posts of mine for how long?  What tone do I normally take things on a regular basis?

That being said:  Your ass-uming that if you crack a joke that seemed to have me at the butt of it, that it would put you in a deep and dark hole, from which you would not emerge for a very long time, at least not without smelling a bit crappy...  poo poo on you...  :p

[Buster's Uncle]

Everyone loves a good sport, sir.

The topic begs for jokes.  They wanted to write themselves right away.  I been dyin' to say "Doggonit it, E_T, I done TOL' you to remember the lube!"

-Ahem-.  The management wishes to remind everyone that we're trying to run a classy place [snickers] and E_T just asked for it, but let's not embarrass ourselves getting too directly vulgar, and confine this exercise in very bad taste to black humor and try to have a modicum of wit re: the butthole and poop angles.  Thanks.

[E_T]

Oh, you have no IDEA as to how many Ironies abound from this...

[Buster's Uncle]

I assume that's a good thing...

[E_T]

it's very mixed

[Buster's Uncle]

Well, it's sad that you're in this predicament and the butt of jokes, to boot.

-Now booting the right butts is something I wish was going on in this country more - present company excepted.

[Spacy]

Sooo tempting, as I know all about how the Great Banana came into being, and the worship that happened 'around' it.  :banana: