It's been a while.

[Little David]

Long time no see, gang.

I was posting around on the Titan forums in the months after CoH's wake, and then dropped off around June. I just wanted to explain why.

I'm still kicking ... for now. This year has been pretty hard on me for two reasons. One, which I never mentioned here at the forums when it happened, was the sudden death of my mother in February. It was a heart attack that got her, in her sleep. I'd been coping with that while trying to press on with my studies, but as I was getting settled in for my first semester at this new university, I got diagnosed with cancer.

It turned out to be Hodgkin's Lymphoma, Stage III.

I've actually been on chemotherapy for a month now. So far ... the chemo seems to be working and I'm mildly optimistic, enough that I'm worried more about permanent side effects than the end of my life being around the corner. Hodgkin's Lymphoma is one of the easiest cancers to cure, and it's what my mom had long before she had me. It never came back for her, but then, they caught it at Stage I. I can only hope I'm not one of the unlucky 20% with a resistant or recurrent form of Hodgkin's.

Time will tell on that, though. And despite it all, I'm still here. I backed the City of Titans project, just enough to get the Agent and Construction Crew perks; even though money's kind of tight, I wanted to leave a mark in the game world that I too was a longtime CoH veteran and I hadn't given up the good fight, even if the worst case scenario happens.

But yeah. Just wanted to keep you guys informed. I'll try and post around here a bit more now that the semester's coming to a close (five classes and a lab + chemotherapy = very bad idea).

Little David, still holding the torch.

[SerialBeggar]

Nice to see you back, and good luck with your Chemo.

[Lycantropus]

Welcome back. :)

[houtex]

Stay strong, David.  Welcome back and good luck to ya.  Sendin' positive vibes your way.

[Little David]

Thanks guys, it means a lot to me. :D

Just had the third infusion today (they had to postpone it a week because my white blood cell and platelt counts were dangerously low, but they were back to normal today). Come two weeks I'll have four more months of chemo left. I just hope it wipes this crap out.

[ohms]

Best of luck with the recovery!

[Arachnion]

Nice to see you back.

I wish you only the best in your recovery!

:D

[eabrace]

Good luck with the treatments, man.  Beat that cancer into remission!

[Illusionss]

Good luck with the treatments, David. Maybe next semester you should give yourself a bit if a break and cut down; that's a heavy load for someone undergoing chemo.  8)

[Little David]

Thanks again, guys. :D If the chemo doesn't finish off the cancer, but it looks like it got most of it, I'm going to consider going to MD Anderson in the summer for Proton Beam Therapy. I'd already been talking to them about it shortly before my chemo treatment started. It's not any more or less effective than standard radiation therapy, but it does a lot less collateral damage to the body because it's far more precise, which is important to me.

Though to do that, I'm probably going to need some help financially. I don't have a source of income since I can't devote enough time for that while trying to keep my GPA up. Mom left me some money in case the worst ever happened to her, though between all the hospital bills piling up and college tuition I might not have much left if I wind up having to continue treatment once the chemo's done. I've tried to mitigate college costs with a Pell Grant and an out-of-state tuition waiver, and I'm working with the hospital business office for some financial relief there, but I won't get results on that until after the 15th.

Maybe next semester you should give yourself a bit if a break and cut down; that's a heavy load for someone undergoing chemo.  8)

Definitely! If I knew for sure I had cancer before I started this semester I wouldn't have taken as heavy a load. I grew too old for the Air Force's dependent insurance plan a few years back, and until I started university here I didn't have insurance; they offered student insurance through Blue Cross Blue Shield though, so I signed up for that and saw a doctor as soon as I could.

Anyway, I'm planning to take it easy for the next semester since I don't know how bad the side effects from treatment are going to get. I've only enrolled for two classes for Spring, and student housing is going to make a waiver for me so I can continue living on campus (you have to be enrolled as a full-timer for that). I'm really glad the university has been working to help make my life easier while I go through this, but boy I've had a stressful time keeping up with all the final projects coming down the pipe.