My life in limbo

[Hannah.Emma]

So, these past two months have been met with a ton of changes.  I tried to face each change with grace, dignity, and enthusiasm.   A quick overview.

1. Wife asked for divorce
2. Started dating to attempt to move one
3. Relationship with another trans girl
4. Slept with a guy for the first time.
5. Came out to my whole family
6. Contemplated suicide so spent a week in psych ward
7.  Moved out of my home and to California with Trans girlfriend

So, that was a lot but it does not end there.  I had to come back to Vegas at the request of my doctor.  I actually got a call from oncology, trying to set up an appointment. My endo got some odd results back from my bloodwork and so now they are attempting to diagnose me with leukemia.  Just great, that's all I need...just lost my wife, kids, family....now I may have cancer.

Anyway, I had arranged to bring back my dog to live in California with me.  So, I came to Vegas for the first round of testing.  Tests were complete and still pointed to leukemia.  So I had to set up round 2.  I was heart broken.  My parents already told me that they would not help me if I was diagnosed.  My wife told me that I could not move back into our family home.  How can I even suspect that my new girlfriend of 3 weeks would be able to help me through cancer? She did not sign up with this...im sure she would not have asked me to move in if she knew.

So, I began to really reflect on what I had lost and all the trials that I was about to go through alone.  In retrospect, I probably should have adopted a wait and see attitude since I don't actually know yet if I have cancer.  I decided then, that my life was over.  I literally had nothing left that I wanted to live for and I was not going to burden another to take care of me if it came down to that. I made my plans on how I was going to do it.  I had some loose ends to tie up because I have sole custody of my oldest from a previous marriage and want to make sure he stayed with his siblings.  I asked my wife one last time if she was willing to attempt to work it out and go to coinciding.  She again told me no.  I had to stay until Tuesday for the 2nd round of tests but then I was just going to leave.  I later informed her that I had decided to leave my dog with her so the kids would not be upset with me taking him.

Thursday hit and I had to be rushed to the hospital due to passing out at a restaurant.  I have been admitted since Friday morning and still here as of this post.  My wife came to visit on Saturday.  She asked me to return home and agreed to counciling.   I was floored. I asked why.  She said she knew what I was planning, that I was going to kill myself.  I tried to deny it but she persisted and told me she knew as soon as I told her about leaving my dog for the kids.

I never want to trap.someone just because I have a poor mental health.  But I also want to be with her more than life itself.  I am so lost and don't know what to do.

[Melanie CT]

Hannah
My prayers go out to you for having to deal with such troubles in life. I to contemplated to take my life at times with less issues.

It's hard for me to give advice but see this as a second chance and move forward with life. You can beat the cancer. You have a family that needs you.

I will be thinking of you and keeping you in my prayers.
Melanie ❤️❤️


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[Dena]

Leukemia isn't an automatic death sentence and has a relatively good survival rate compared to some of the other cancers. Your doctor will be able to provide more specific information as far as the leukemia you have. At this point, you need to be true to your self and honest with your wife. She is correct in asking you to have therapy as a good outlook on live will help in your treatment. As long as your wife understands your needs, this could be an opportunity to rebuild you relationship. You should consider this a chance to remake your life and live it to the fullest.

I speak from experience on this. My roommate also had cancer and while it was diagnosed far to late for effective treatment, we made the most of her last few months. I knew I had done everything I could for her and she was able to knock things off her bucket list. Nobody knows how much time they have left but make the most out of each day.

[AnneK]

Leukemia isn't an automatic death sentence and has a relatively good survival rate compared to some of the other cancers.

I recently watched a show on the National Geographic channel about a cure for certain types of leukemia.  It involved modifying HIV to attack leukemia cells.  According to the show it actually is a cure, as the modified HIV remains in the body and will attack any new flair ups.  One thing the show mentioned was that it was so effective and worked so fast, that the patient had problems getting rid of the dead leukemia cells fast enough.

[Laurie]

So, I began to really reflect on what I had lost and all the trials that I was about to go through alone.  In retrospect, I probably should have adopted a wait and see attitude since I don't actually know yet if I have cancer.  I decided then, that my life was over.  I literally had nothing left that I wanted to live for and I was not going to burden another to take care of me if it came down to that. I made my plans on how I was going to do it.

Hi Hannah,

   I'm Laurie. I read your story and I want to hunt you down and smack you up the side of the head until you quit feeling sorry for your self and start thinking about what you can do for yourself.  As you said you don't even know if you have cancer yet and you are wanting to off yourself???  Really? You want to give up, pack it all in without knowing you even have cancer? Grow up girl, Put your big girl panties on and start fighting back. I did a quick search for 5 year survival rate for leukemia cancer patients. The 5 year survival rate is the yard stick they use for measuring cancer. Leukemia has several types and of those the worst survival rate for people diagnosed fro 2006-2012 is 50%
  Yes 50% is the worst!  The best is 88 %.  Those are GREAT rates.

   I was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma, Kidney cancer back around 2006. They cut my left kidney out. About 2011 it came back in my pancreas. It was now stage IV renal cell carcinoma, it had metastasized. I was given 3-6 months to live. My 5 year survival was then 8%. I let them cut out half of my pancreas and then some and spent 11 days in the hospital.  Three years ago in 2014 it was back again. This time it was inoperable and again I was told I had 3 -6 months to live. Still dogged with that stage IV kidney cancer survival rate of 8% I asked about a less used treatment that would take 4 -5 week of systematically letting the doctors poison me every 8 hours with high dose IL-2 (interleukin-2) while in ICU care. The treatment itself could prove to be fatal. (In fact both of the patients treated before me did have to be resuscitated.) The overall response rate reported was 15%. That is only 15% of those having the treatment responded at all to it. 7% have a good response. And even a smaller percent have a really good response. And an even smaller percent could be considered cured. The median survival time was 16.3 months in the article I am quoting. It will be 3 years for me in a couple of months. I did not give up. My oncologist says she believes I'll be around for a number of years yet. I'm winning!

   When I see someone get scared and want to give up without a fight it upsets me. You cannot win if you do not fight and life is too precious to not fight for every minute of it. Compared to the odds I faced you have a walk in the park IF you even have leukemia. Don't give up Hannah fight, fight like hell.

Hugs,
   Laurie