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144 to get my blood tested, talk to the doctor, and probably have two more sessions two weeks apart. From there I would probably get my prophylactic phlebotomy every one, two, or three months. I need to rid myself of this thick blood because otherwise it maybe maybe maybe could cause blood clots, stroke, heart attack. I have learned what the signs of a blood clot are and that you can get an ultrasound to show if you have one. If this venesection, as the Brits call it, doesn’t work, then there’s Plan B, which involves chemotherapy . Mild. In the form of a pill called hydroxyurea. My hematologist asked if I had itching. I said, mostly after taking a shower, and she said that’s a symptom. I had noticed but I hadn’t thought it meant anything. I also have hot flashes, which is not news to attentive readers or anyone who has been in a room with me lately. While flashing, my face and ears turn red. The doctor said that the phlebotomy might help with my hot flashes. So that’s good news. (I keep thinking lobotomy and have to remind myself that one is brain and one is blood. No ice picks for Cancer Bitch.) On the Internet you can send off for leeches of your own. They are nonreturnable. MARCH 9. HOISTING A PINT OR, THE ANNALS OF POLYCYTHEMIA VERA (IN VERA VERITAS) Two weeks ago I went to LifeSource and got a pint of blood removed. I go again on Tuesday. I think the bloodletting has helped. I may be getting less red in the face and sweating less upon exertion and upon hot-flashing. The other morning I woke up to npr and thought I heard that British veterans with my disease were suing the government. I figured it had to be part of my dream world, but it was real. Apparently hundreds of British and New Zealand servicemen who witnessed nuclear tests in the South Pacific in the 1950s claim that the radiation exposure caused them to develop polycythemia and other illnesses. Some suffered immediate effects from the radiation: Several chaps lost teeth, and others lost their hair, according to a serviceman who was 18 at the time and a radio operator aboard a ship. So a lot of wives and sweethearts 145 waited in Devonport to welcome back bald fiancés and bald boyfriends with a few teeth missing. Others developed pv later or cancers. Some 700 of them have banded together to sue the British Department of Defence for compensation. The former radio operator quoted above was diagnosed with polycythemia in 1974. The bbc refers to it as a rare form of blood cancer that his doctors have linked to his exposure to radiation. (For his sake and the sake of the lawsuit, the disease should be as dire as possible; it’s sometimes considered precancerous, as a small percentage of people with it develop leukemia, and it’s sometimes considered cancer, but it’s not really cancer cancer.) I felt like saying, Aha, when I read about the British lawsuit, though I have never sailed the high seas for the United Kingdom. I’m of a mind to blame large institutions for bad things that happen to people. But I was never around a nuclear test. I had a lot of chest X-rays as a child because of my asthma and the two times I had pneumonia , but how could I ever prove a connection between the X-rays and the polycythemia? I’m not part of a group of sailors or soldiers or anything else that had repeated chest X-rays. I am a lone Cancer Bitch from the lone prairie. With extra-thick blood and a bad attitude. MARCH 19. I WAS MARCHING I’m not sure what my favorite color is or what my favorite breed of dog is (dachshund some days, beagle, others) but I know what my favorite chant is. It’s: Show me what democracy looks like. This is what democracy looks like. Tell me what democracy sounds like. This is what democracy sounds like. I like it because it’s accurate. I am marching with the Code Pink women’s group up Michigan Avenue, holding pink signs and banners aloft, and the shoppers ...

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