Kaposi's Sarcoma (KS)
What is KS, is a cancer that develops from the cells that line lymph or blood vessels.The abnormal cells of KS form purple, red,or brown blotches or tumors on the skin. The skin lesions of KS often appear on the legs or face.
On May 4, 2008 I was diagnosed with KS , from a skin biopsy my primary care doctor did on me, from there I was referred to a Oncologist for further treatment, in the very beginning the oncologist on me on Doxal, which is the most common treatment of KS, but Doxal wasn't doing much but damaging my heart which unfortunately is one of the side effects of this drug, and the KS was spreading more through out my left leg, where it started. When they decided to take me off doxal they switched me over to Taxal, this type of chemotherapy drug is used for uterine cancer in woman mostly, and this where all the severe issues started with me, I first lost my hair, lost alot of weight, lost all the color in my skin, and the nausea was so bad, that I was afraid to leave the house cause I had to vomit up stomach vial all the time, I had to receive blood transfusions several times of the years of treatment, this takes a tole on your body, and your spirit, but I knew I had to push forward and keep a positive attitude about all of this, and I had to be a medical advocate for myself. At this point my body was not producing blood on its own, and the transfusions the doctor was giving me , my body was sucking it up so fast, they couldn't figure out where it was going, cause I had no internal bleeding. And it was taking an emotional tole on me.
During this whole process up to this point my HIV was staying undetectable , but my cd4 kept dropping, and my hemoglobin would not stabilize. I was not feeling all that well and I felt sick all the time, so it was hard for to recognize if there was other issues going on in my body. I was having severe pain in my lower back and was so weak I could barely get my self out of bed. I went in to see my oncologist,and the nurses had to help me walk by this point, I was so weak, my doctor had the lab run some blood work on me, and the first part of my labs came back and the numbers were low, but nothing unusual for me. So we decided I was not going to receive chemotherapy that day, and just get fluids, cause we thought that I was just severely dehydrated, so I went down to the treatment room and had the nurse access my port I had in my chest, and started fluids, and the nurse kept asking me if everything was ok, but by this point I could barely speak, so the nurse went back to the computer to check on some lab numbers, and by this point the rest of my labs had come in that the doctor hadn't seen yet, so the nurse was on the phone with the doctor, and I could hear my name, but not what they were saying, and she hung up the phone and then made another call, and I heard my name again, so I knew she was still talking about me. The nurse then came over to me and started asking me questions about my lower back pain, and how I was feeling kind of all around, at this point the nurse asked me if I knew what my creatinine level was and what it meant, and of course that part I never had to look at or even be concerned about, the nurse said a normal creatinine should be around 1, and then she said mine was at 13, and I was in kidney failure, and I was being transported to the ER immediately , and she has notified my mother who was my emergency contact.
I am going to have to stop for now, the next part is to hard for me to talk about at this time, but I promise I will get back to it very soon, cause I do need to finally get it off my chest.
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