My Life Changing In An Instant

If I have had a roller coaster of a day, today was it. Good news followed by bad news.

First the good news: The Big Annoucement: I am moving to Salem, Oregon's capitol next month. I have officially accepted a job with the Oregon Department of Transportation as their technology coordinator. I am both filled with excitement and nervousness for the new position, but boy am I happy! So now the cat is out of the bag! You now know what I have been up to and somewhat closed-lip about for the past several months -- it was the biggest job hunt of my life.

I will miss Joseph immensely, but I was ready for a life change, a very big life change. It has finally happened. Joseph will still be my home, and I probably will return one day, maybe not tomorrow, but definitely in the not so distant future. For all of you close to me, you knew this change was waiting in the wings. For several years I have talked about moving, and in the last couple of years you knew I was burnt out. You knew I was stressed out, you knew it was taking a toll on my health. And for those of you that know, you have shared nothing but feelings of happiness for me, and for that I thank you.

The next obvious question, what will I do with my business? It has been split off and is under new ownership effective October 1st, with the exception of the web development division which I will continue to run. I will post the official "press release" later in the week. It is very likely the new business will operate under a new name. All of my computer and video production customers will continue to have support and service as a result of this acquisition. Jay Watts and I will continue updating and maintaining websites for the existing clientèle who had a site with LB Productions. Obviously, we will run this from Portland and Salem, where the new business will continue to operate from Joseph in a new storefront.

Now, to the bad news...

Dr. Simpson from OHSU informed me of my biopsy results, they were not good. I was informed the cells captured appeared to be "crushed," which is very behavioral of lymphoma. The fear is that my lymphoma has come back. He informed me that the biopsy was not the best sample, and that a new biopsy should be taken to be sure. I will be going to OHSU on Friday at 1pm to see Dr. Simpson and have a new biopsy taken to find out officially what is going on. As you can imagine this news was a huge setback for me, but I am not losing hope -- not by a long shot. If this is indeed a return of lymphoma -- the good news is that it appears this occurrence is completely in my skin and could be treated with just radiation. Unfortunately, this news came quite as a shock to me as we all thought this was just a bad case of LyP. No matter what it turns out to be I am ready to fight it. This is nothing compared to the lymphoma I had in 1997, and should be a "cake walk" comparatively speaking. I am going to continue to run my life "business as usual" and am confident I can continue to move forward with my plans as I believe they are vital to the road of better health both physically and mentally.

Thank you all for your excitement (for my new job) and your support (for my illness), I feel good about this life change, and will continue the good fight. Thanks for helping me through this transitional, difficult, and exciting time in my life.

-LB

Enough's Enough.

Last week, I finally hit the end of my chain as I found out the earliest I could get in to see a doc at Oregon Health and Science University would be October 23rd. As you've been reading my blog over the past several weeks, my LyP hasn't gotten any better. Finally, my friend Linda gave me the wisest piece of advice: go down to OHSU's emergency room and park yourself until you are helped. So that is what I did, with good friend Chris Gamboa driving me down, we entered the ER at OHSU on Sunday.

They were most helpful in admitting me into the ER. We were able to see a doctor in a decent amount of time. The doctor (just like all the doctors I have seen previously) didn't know what was going on with my foot, except it was a bad looking blister surrounded in a new crop of red bumps. She told us "I had better get my supervising doctor to come see this." So about a half hour later Dr. Harper poked his head in for about five seconds and came to the conclusion that we had better get dermatology to look at this. About two hours later they arrived. Dr. Rachel Moore was the first to arrive, and I was instantly amazed with her brilliance. She had actually heard the condition Lymphomatoid Papulosis! I told her I had an appointment to see Dr. Eric Simpson on October 23rd, but I had rushed into the ER because I was fearing my condition was crossing over into lymphoma. She said "Oh, well Dr. Simpson is coming in right behind me." I was impressed to see him just a few seconds later. What an intelligent doctor I had the privilege in being in the presence of. Within minutes he knew I had LyP, and was fairly confident that it was just that and not lymphoma -- at least not yet. He actually has another patient who suffers from this condition, and she has it all over her body. I suppose my situation could get worse, couldn't it?

He immediately suggested I get on the medication Methotrexate, which I had read a lot about. I shared my concerns about how it lowers the immune system. He told me with some close monitoring of my blood count, this should work great. In fact, it melted the LyP right off the other patent's body! I was amazed.

I didn't get out of the ER unharmed, however as they took a biopsy to make sure the LyP wasn't really lymphoma. I should find out in a week or two the results. Also, on Monday I will get my blood tested to make sure I can start full doses of Methotrexate, and hopefully it will only be a matter of time before I'm LyP free.

Another amazing occurrence is that one of the nurses in the ER, Carolyn Thompson -- use to live in Joseph! She even referred to me as the 'infamous Levi Bobbitt' when she saw my chart. Chris and I had a great time visiting with her, as well as our other nurse Alisha.

What turned out to be a pretty nerve-racking experience quickly turned into a pleasurable one as the staff of OHSU impressed me and finally got me some answers that I have been desperately been waiting for over two months now.

I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the caring doctors and nurses at OHSU who took time to figure out what was going on with me this past Sunday. Just a few minutes of time saved me a world of hurt, which could have eventually cost me my life.

-LB

P.S. I have a HUGE announcement, look for it next week!

On My Way to OHSU

It's been a while, and I know that. I am sorry. It has been a trying few weeks. The Lymphomatoid Papulosis is here to stick around for a while.

It has been three weeks of fighting to get into OHSU. It finally happened this week when my local doctor got me in for October 23. Being disgusted with that length of time, I have decided to check myself into the ER of Oregon Health & Science University in Portland on Sunday so I can get some help, now.

The LyP has advanced, a lot. It has covered a large portion of my foot. My fear is that it has turned into cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma at this stage. This would require some radiation at the very least.

For the past several nights I have woken up scared, that my cancer has returned. Though, I must say that if it has, this time should be much easier as it is more or less "contained" to my foot and has not traveled into my blood or any other organ in my body (at least that is my hope).

On top of it all, I have some really strong and strange infection with bacteria that is resistant to most antibiotics. For three weeks I took Levaquin which did nothing, so two days ago I started stuff that is actually supposed to work.

With little being known about LyP, I am headed off to the big city in hopes someone will pay attention to me, and find a cure for my ailment.

-LB