Staying in touch

Just a quick reminder on the mechanics of my blog. With a special nudge to Steve Karan.

If you want to stay in touch me or if you offer to help me by sharing your experience, I have no way to contact you unless you include your email in your comment. This can be very frustrating.

Better yet if you wish to protect your privacy, simply email me at bkoffmanmd@gmail.com

I will NEVER share that information with anyone. I have no reason to, and I expect the same from you.

If you forget my email address is also included in my profile, and in the introductory paragraph of my blog.

So, to Steve Karan, and others, I do want to learn more and share experiences, please drop me a note.

Thanks.

As I have said before, and will say again and again, we are all in this together.

Waiting for my bone marrow biopsy report

Is there any meaning in the lack of  results? Surely he would rush the good news to me.

I can easily get lost in this crazy thinking. The Talmud teaches that prophecy has been taken from prophets and given to fools and children. However, it does later adds, with typical twisted Talmudic logic, the wise to the prophetic group.

I just emailed Dr. Forman to ask if there any results back yet from my bone marrow biopsy.

In case you are new to my blog, I have a a freight train of trouble waiting for news.

Still I say it is an act of courage and optimism to push for my results.

Would you do the same? Live with the not knowing, or move up the time that the envelope gets torn open?

Of course, as in the rest of life, despite what the devotees of THE SECRET  believe, my writing the email will certainly have no effect on what the reply contains and in all likelihood on when it will arrive.

Yet I know that what I did was brave, but I was so nervous about doing it.

Green tea and emails

Barry asked about green tea (see comments).

I hope it's saving the day, because I quit more than 40 years of my drug of choice, coffee, to move to the gentler world of camelia sinensis.

There is not much data, but the Mayo clinic study shows that one particular tea extract may slow the disease progression for some patients. 

Its benefits in Stage IV are anyone's guess. It can interfere with certain meds, but that is usually not a concern in CLL as those meds aren't often used to treat CLL.

I suspect that for a very few of us green tea may have very potent antileukemic effects, for some. its effects are mild, a few get worse, and for most, it doesn't hurt. Which is far better than  some of the treatments out there.

Tea trees may have high pesticide residues, so I only drink organic green tea, preferably from Japan. 

BTW, if you want to ask me a question, the best way is to email me at bkoffmanmd@gmail.com

A problem with the blog is that while I love your comments and welcome your questions, at least once you should email me so I can respond personally thereafter.

I can't give medical advice on the Internet,  but I can help explain your options and suggest what you might want to discuss with your doctors.  

Also I can recommend tea. 

I drink three pots a day Organic Superior Sencha. The tea is steeped at precisely 176 degrees for 75 seconds.

It has a rounded full taste with very little astringency, an almost floral scent, and a hint of peach. I use the same leaves for all three pots, and the third is almost as good as the first.

Wonderful. Alerting and calming at the same time.

You never knew I was a tea snob.