Girls looking good hope all is well with ur health wise !!!!!
Hi Jacky.
thank you on both counts my good friend.
Hey Krissi, great to hear from you. Such big buds, trimming should be interesting. Whatever ails you, we got your back as best as we can do with kind words and thoughts.
Hey there Gid, thanks for the positive vibes bud. I was thinking the same thing to myself last night in the tent, how am I going to split these colas up come harvest? I have no idea
Wow
some of those look bigger than my head
... So sorry to hear about your health
Seriously they are like Medieval clubs and the foxtails are the spikes. These 18 inch colas could kill a man my friend. Thanks for the love brother.
So before I dig into it, I'll preface my confession with some trichome shots of our soon to be plucked from the tent Sirius Black. This
@Weed Seeds Express gem is truly a remarkable strain and I urge so many of you non Indica friends to travel over to WSE and get yourself at least a few of these to have in your collection. Her aroma is alluring and then some and the smoke, incredible. Clearly raising one, is an absolute joy.
Falkor will be pulled from this tent on Friday.
So moving on, I'll be as concise as I can and thank you to
@420 for giving me the final much needed push to come forward to you all, our amazing community of cannabis enthusiasts.
In December of 2020, I started with some lethargy, a general sense of just feeling not right, bone and joint pain, some weight loss, pale skin, easy bruising, brain fog, numbness and tingling on my right side. Because of the range of symptoms, my PCP had ordered some tumor marker blood work just in case. Well low and behold, my Carcinoembryonic Antigen was almost double the highest marker on the scale for normal values.
I went to my OBGYN to get an ultrasound make sure nothing was brewing in my lady factory. I went and got a colonoscopy and an endoscopy to make sure nothing was brewing in the rear canal or in my stomach. These were fine.
I saw a Neurosurgeon for shoulder issues I was having that my orthopedic told me finally was a neck issue. I was doing PT, the question of MS was on the table with my brain fog and numbness but I have yet to finish my PT needed before my stupid insurance will authorize the MRI. This is even with a diagnosis of early on set bone spurs seen in my c5 and c6 through an Xray which are conducive to the nerve issues I was having. But that's another story for another day....
I saw an oncologist who was beyond less than helpful. He stated he couldn't just do tests on me and the number was still relatively low but when more symptoms come up to let him know. He did no additional testing, didn't even examine me physically at his office. My PCP was not pleased. She said let's check your numbers again in 6 months and go from there.
CEA is usually used when monitoring how well a cancer patient is responding to treatment not in initial diagnosis so the doctors and I have been working backwards trying to find the tumor/cancer that is causing these antigens to be produced. Needless to say, this has been a struggle to decipher.
So a year later, I finally got my CEA level checked again and it was now more than double the highest normal unit on the sliding scale, numbers in this range suggest extensive disease progression. Problem was we had no idea what disease was going on. My PCP said to find a new oncologist. Booked up for months, I made the appointment in September and am now finally going February 6th.
I finally saw a rheumatologist in October for my bone and joint pain. In Indiana, where I lived for nearly 8 years after my first marriage, I was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis as a complication of the psoriasis I was told I had. I had tests done at the rheumatologist here and low and behold, more news, I do not have psoriatic arthritis, nothing came back on blood work in terms of lupus, RA, or any other immuno disease. He deemed me advanced degenerative osteoarthritis, probably early onset because of my extreme athletic involvement in my youth. What he did find though was that my blood has apparently began to thicken. I had high hemoglobin, red blood cells and hematocrit. This he said was suggestive of a rare blood cancer called Polycythemia Vera or PV for short. It presents with many of my symptoms. So a thought for the oncologist appt, he forwarded my labs to her.
Now to December when some of you may remember my need for steroids with the rash and extreme itch that presented a week before Christmas. Usually as soon as I hit Day 2 of a taper (I've been on these frequently for years), my symptoms are almost non existent. Not this time. They went away slightly but not completely. As soon as I stopped, they started back up, even getting worse. I called my PCP she told me to get into the dermatologist for a punch biopsy and to the allergist for patch testing with hopes that it is nothing bad but something environmental that I have built a new sensitivity to.
So off I went to the dermatologist now a week later after the phone call w the PCP, for my biopsy. When I went there, I had a new symptom, enlarged lymph nodes. The derma thought it very odd but was hoping it was a late response from my lingering rash perhaps. But she said she had some thoughts and ordered the bloodwork I posted here. She told me to call my oncologist with my new symptoms but I wasn't quite sure why.
What I didn't tell you was that the blood work isn't actually just standard you don't feel good bloodwork. It has a few panels for suggested diseases and furthermore these tests, if abnormal, need to get ran through a pathologist as they narrow down which issue is present based off of the certain separation and count of specific cells and markers.
The good news is that, this possible diagnosis would account for all of my symptoms that have been building over the last 2 years. The current rash and itching is a predominant trait of lymphoma as well as the continously enlarged, growing, and misshapen lymph nodes. Bone pain and lethargy as well as brain fog and tingling and numbess are all character symptoms of this disease.
Obviously when I called the office, there wasn't much more we could discuss than the aforementioned, but they asked me to go and get the lymph node most prominently enlarged, biopsied as soon as I could, so we could discuss the findings sooner and move forward.
The current thought is that I have a form of lymphoma. I am set for a lymph node biopsy on the 7th, the day after my oncologist appt-the earliest the surgeon could see me.
So needless to say I've been tired and you guys knows my daily life things that make me tired and this stress has just been taking a toll on me all together. TK and I finally talked about my health openly between us just this weekend, so don't feel too out of the loop.
OK so that's all I'm going to say for now. I say all I'm going to say as if I just didn't write the Grapes of Wrath trying to open up to you guys and gals. I tell you guys this for mental and emotional support, for comfort, for thoughts and suggestions, and also because I want you to understand I want to be on here more but my head has been pulling me away along with my need to fall asleep early these last few weeks-if you hadn't noticed, it's been a while since I could pull an all nighter now. But anyway, let's move forward to happy thoughts and pictures of my plants.
I took most of these 2 days ago I think, just never came on here to make an entry in the journal. And yes, every plant is now standing tall with the help of either bamboo supports or yo-yos or both....
Here's some Zombie Death. These zombie fingers are gonna be fun to trim, speaking of trimming
@Gidorah 
Here's some of our focus plant Chunk in the Kannabia Gelato-K c/o
@CannaPot , who will be soon to leave the 4x4 after our Sirius Black.
She is ungodly covered in trichomes and also has the webbing I see that my Big Bull girls have. So much color in her, I didn't see any of these colors come out during the Summer grow so this is so fun to watch finish out. Not to mention, as we talked about earlier, she is much more Gelato than Kush in many ways versus the Gelato-K before her in Stella.
I had taken a pic of our drying Zombie Death #1 in Gizmo, who finished super early. She is now in 7 Mason jars at 7.85 OZ. I'll get pics to you of her cured buds soon, for now, this one was while she was drying and I was able to re-up some kief reserve trimming her also
We got the rest of the girls and I think a shot of our Sirius Black and Gorilla Glue Super Lemon Haze by their lonesomes, to finish this long but overdue journal entry.
Thanks for all the love and compassion-I'm truly grateful for the companionship and energies you guys offer me with so selflessly
all I can say is get on the CCO
