So it seems this whole low platelet deal isn't a one-time thing. I guess back when I started chemo I had a healthy reserve of platelets and I've been whittling away at them over the weeks and months and finally used up all my spares, leaving me with the bare minimum (or less). Short version is that I've had to delay my chemo again. This time I had about 83,000 platelets per microliter, better than last time but still only about half the lower normal limit and too low to start my chemo. They're going to check my blood again next week before giving me the go-ahead. At least they'd better, because all these office visit co-pays are starting to add up. If I'd known it was going to be this expensive I never would have agreed to have cancer in the first place. Anyway, we're likely going to change my treatment schedule to 5 days on, 4 weeks off, instead of just 3 weeks off. The chemo has worn me down. I need more time to recover. It boggles my mind that just two months ago they were thinking of upping my dose by about 30%.
Work's been hard. Deadlines are deadlines and I hate making excuses for myself, even if they're really good ones, but I've had a lot of trouble focusing lately. I know that I need to keep working, for the money, the insurance and for the sake of my own emotions. I just never really expected it to be like this. You ask someone, what would they do if they knew they didn't have long to live. No one ever says, "well gee, I suppose I'd keep working a full-time office job." I'm one seizure away from that no longer being an option. Of course that seizure would end a lot of other things as well, including the sense of freedom and independence I get from being a mostly-functional adult with my own car, my own keys, and my own home. I'm one seizure away from being a kid again, but I don't want to go back there. I just wish I wasn't stuck in this limbo, this constant state of "quasi-dying," where sickness and despair makes it harder for me to work but work makes it possible for me to have anything other than sickness and despair. If this had just hit me a few decades later, maybe I'd have enough in savings for an early retirement. As if that's the only reason to wish cancer had waited a while longer. The other day a co-worker of mine told me I was lucky to be fighting this while I'm still young and strong. I couldn't help but sarcastically reply, "yeah, it would have sucked if I didn't get cancer until my fifties or sixties." He admitted that yeah, that was a dumb thing for him to say, but I reassured him that I knew what he meant and appreciated the sentiment.
Over the weekend I visited my parents to celebrate my recent birthday (I should probably update those "29s," but for some reason they all look so much nicer than "30s"). It was stressful, to say the least. They invited over a few other relatives, including some that are a bit too high-energy for me. Strange, active people. I put on a brave face and soldiered through it, for my mom's sake rather than my own. I felt cornered, in part due to my position at their too-small table in their too-small kitchen, and also because I was the center of attention at a party better suited to someone a third my age. By the end I'd had enough. Over the last year I've developed a far greater capability to withstand discomfort, but I've also lost a lot of patience for utter nonsense. I think there was supposed to be some sort of puppet show but I politely excused myself and slipped out to have a moment to rest. I felt beyond exhausted and had trouble keeping my thoughts straight. I had trouble forming opinions, and articulating them. I didn't feel I was safe to drive, so I spent the night on an uncomfortable air mattress on the TV room floor. My brother and his wife were using the bedroom I'd used during the month after my surgery, when I'd stayed with my parents.
I don't get to see either of them often enough. My brother isn't an outwardly emotional person. He doesn't like physical contact, or expressing things as scary and dangerous as feelings. He shows his affection in other ways, and over this last year he's been there for me in every way he could, given that he lives half-way across the country. We'd kept in touch through e-mail but this was the first time we'd met face-to-face since before my surgery. I know that it must have been emotional for him. I wonder what he thought I'd become, and how close I was to his expectations. Did he feel relief that I am so close to what I used to be, or sorrow at the significance of my shaved scalp, and that scar over my brow?
He, his wife and I spent some time together. That's all I'd really wanted. Not some party with loud relatives, or "events," or "activities." I just wanted to be with my brother and sister-in-law for a while.
Maybe it's time for me to do something other than struggle for adequacy. I can't retire, but I can take vacations. That sounds like the sort of thing a 30-year-old does from time to time, right?
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Chemo sucks (finally)
Sorry I've been a bit absent as of late. It's been busy at work and to be honest, I just haven't wanted to think about having cancer for a while.
Last month I had my usual finger stick and my doctor informed me that my platelet count was too low to start the month's round. 53,000 per microliter (normal is about 150,000-450,000). He told me that it's nothing to worry about, no real concern, but that he wanted me to wait a week to recover before starting my next round. A week later I'd rebounded to just shy of the lower end of normal, so he gave me the go-ahead on the lower dose. It was kind of a bummer, since I'd tolerated the chemo so well for so long. My other counts (RBCs and WBCs) were fine.
How he explained it to me, when a patient takes chemo it damages their bone marrow and reduces their ability to produce blood cells. Give the body some time to recover and it can usually repair about 99% of the damage. Now, that's the number he gave me so it's what I've got to work with. I have no idea how accurate that is. So even though the body can almost completely recover, there is a small amount of permanent damage. Then next time, the patient will recover to 99% of their new normal, for a little more permanent damage, which brings them to about 98.01% of their original baseline.
The makers of Temodar suggest that patients only take it for a maximum of 2 years, regardless of its effectiveness. 24 doses means their blood's about 21.4% compromised.
I've always hated math.
I saw a series called The Unusuals on Netflix that has an interesting take on brain cancer. It's about a group of NYC detectives. It's not a particularly great show - each character basically has exactly one character trait - but one of the characters has a brain tumor and shows a lot of the same symptoms and anxieties I've seen in myself and other patients. He decides to try to ignore his tumor, because he doesn't want to end up a vegetable in a hospital even though his doctor tells him he'll be dead within months if he doesn't get it treated. Throughout the nine episodes I watched (not sure if there are any more), he suffers hallucinations, changes in his sense of taste and smell, headaches, and of course all the fear and uncertainty such a diagnosis brings. I think the show got canceled after that so I don't know if he ever does get it treated; the closest he got in the episodes I saw was sneaking into a hospital with the coroner for an MRI.
It's a good enough treatment of the disease that I wonder if it isn't based on some real life experience. Worth a watch if you have Netflix streaming and nothing better to do.
Last month I had my usual finger stick and my doctor informed me that my platelet count was too low to start the month's round. 53,000 per microliter (normal is about 150,000-450,000). He told me that it's nothing to worry about, no real concern, but that he wanted me to wait a week to recover before starting my next round. A week later I'd rebounded to just shy of the lower end of normal, so he gave me the go-ahead on the lower dose. It was kind of a bummer, since I'd tolerated the chemo so well for so long. My other counts (RBCs and WBCs) were fine.
How he explained it to me, when a patient takes chemo it damages their bone marrow and reduces their ability to produce blood cells. Give the body some time to recover and it can usually repair about 99% of the damage. Now, that's the number he gave me so it's what I've got to work with. I have no idea how accurate that is. So even though the body can almost completely recover, there is a small amount of permanent damage. Then next time, the patient will recover to 99% of their new normal, for a little more permanent damage, which brings them to about 98.01% of their original baseline.
The makers of Temodar suggest that patients only take it for a maximum of 2 years, regardless of its effectiveness. 24 doses means their blood's about 21.4% compromised.
I've always hated math.
I saw a series called The Unusuals on Netflix that has an interesting take on brain cancer. It's about a group of NYC detectives. It's not a particularly great show - each character basically has exactly one character trait - but one of the characters has a brain tumor and shows a lot of the same symptoms and anxieties I've seen in myself and other patients. He decides to try to ignore his tumor, because he doesn't want to end up a vegetable in a hospital even though his doctor tells him he'll be dead within months if he doesn't get it treated. Throughout the nine episodes I watched (not sure if there are any more), he suffers hallucinations, changes in his sense of taste and smell, headaches, and of course all the fear and uncertainty such a diagnosis brings. I think the show got canceled after that so I don't know if he ever does get it treated; the closest he got in the episodes I saw was sneaking into a hospital with the coroner for an MRI.
It's a good enough treatment of the disease that I wonder if it isn't based on some real life experience. Worth a watch if you have Netflix streaming and nothing better to do.
Friday, April 13, 2012
Testimony from a Brother in Arms
I saw this over on BoingBoing, a beautifully written account about the latest in a line of surgeries to cure a talented man of an abdominal cancer that threatened a "radical penectomy," one of the most horrifying procedures known to science. He was treated at the same facility and I, by a man whose name I recognize, and spent some time in a hospital I remember on my darkest, coldest nights. I'd recommend it to anyone who has found my own account at all interesting for whatever reason.
I've thought, from time to time, about how brain cancer stacks up to other cancers. Mainly whether it would be better to have a more embarrassing, more survivable cancer. Brain cancer is, relatively speaking, pretty dignified. Despite its high fatality rate, it's more akin to growing old before one's time. Rectal cancer or urethral cancer tend to be more survivable (though are still extremely serious, of course), but I shudder to picture the trials patients of those terrible diseases must endure. A "radical penectomy" is a real thing, and a man can live without a penis much more easily than he can without a brain. At least, physically.
Anyway, it's good to hear that Mr. Dery appears to have dodged that bullet with his member intact.
I've thought, from time to time, about how brain cancer stacks up to other cancers. Mainly whether it would be better to have a more embarrassing, more survivable cancer. Brain cancer is, relatively speaking, pretty dignified. Despite its high fatality rate, it's more akin to growing old before one's time. Rectal cancer or urethral cancer tend to be more survivable (though are still extremely serious, of course), but I shudder to picture the trials patients of those terrible diseases must endure. A "radical penectomy" is a real thing, and a man can live without a penis much more easily than he can without a brain. At least, physically.
Anyway, it's good to hear that Mr. Dery appears to have dodged that bullet with his member intact.
Monday, April 9, 2012
My World, My Mirror
I have always felt a sort of connection to the natural world. Over the past year, our state has been lashed by storms of unprecedented strength, shattering our characteristic forests and coaxing our citizens to further trim back what growth survived the wind and rain. Derelict buildings, once masked by foliage, have started to emerge from the thinning woodlands along our streets. I cannot help but think of my hair when I see familiar patches of forest, cut back so drastically I no longer recognize them, save for the many stumps.
But I also have always felt a strange attraction to derelict structures. They resonate with such stark, unashamed truth: this is what we were, and what we shall be. Decaying, skeletal, a monument to our accomplishments and comfort but victim to the natural forces that were here before us and will remain after us. I have always wanted to go exploring in one but know that that's both illegal and dangerous. The former doesn't bother me much any longer, boyscout though I've been. The latter makes me want to bring someone, so as not to go alone. I do not know if I know anyone I could recruit for such an undertaking, but that is the only way to really know a derelict. I pass an old house every day, on my way to and from work. Its windows are open, some broken, some missing entirely as if gutted from the structure. Dead vines lace across its bone-white facade, like black arteries through adipocere. I want to go in. I want to see how it was left, and wonder to myself, what story played out here? Who was the last person to touch this discarded object, or that? Did they know they would never return? Did they regret not bringing it with them? What were the last words spoken here?
Above all, I am most connected with water, and perhaps that is why I cannot tolerate the intersection of derelict and water. When I was very young, I couldn't stand the sight of something artificial obscured by the murk of a lake. I remember seeing the ladder to a dock within the pea green water, light streaming around it, shadows reaching down into the darkness below. I always imagined there was something down there, something metal and jagged and wrong, waiting to reach up and grab me. I had to steel my nerves to swim over that dark water. Even after I dove off that dock, and swam all the way down to feel the slime and mud at the bottom, 20 feet below, I still avoided the chains that moored the dock in place. Then one year, I was nearly a teenager at the time, I went to the lake for a swim. The other swimmers looked like there was something wrong with their skin. Tiny, thin black lines, like hairs, all over. They were all lined up in front of a hose, which was used to cleanse their bodies of this strange phenomenon, of the sludge that clung to their body hair.
Toxic sludge. The lake had been poisoned by runoff.
Another place miles away, the only natural spring I've ever seen. I remember the natural stone pool into which it flowed, crystal clear. The water was so pure, and so delicious. It isn't, any longer. It, too, has been poisoned.
Fitting, then, that I too have become poisoned. I wonder if I will ever be pure again.
I know what it's like to drown. I don't mean that metaphorically. I mean that I have struggled for breath with all my strength, and found my strength lacking. I have felt my lungs fill with water, and my body go limp. I remember the incredibly clarity of realizing that I am about to die, and the peace of acceptance. Then the weight on me lifted, I pushed to the surface with my last ounce of strength, and I coughed up two lungs' worth of pool water.
Can't say I'm disappointed with how that turned out, but that calmness still haunts me. If there's a moral to this story, I need some more time before I can see it. Unless it's just that "Let's Drown Knightly" isn't a great pool game.
MRI tomorrow. Wish me luck, boys and girls.
But I also have always felt a strange attraction to derelict structures. They resonate with such stark, unashamed truth: this is what we were, and what we shall be. Decaying, skeletal, a monument to our accomplishments and comfort but victim to the natural forces that were here before us and will remain after us. I have always wanted to go exploring in one but know that that's both illegal and dangerous. The former doesn't bother me much any longer, boyscout though I've been. The latter makes me want to bring someone, so as not to go alone. I do not know if I know anyone I could recruit for such an undertaking, but that is the only way to really know a derelict. I pass an old house every day, on my way to and from work. Its windows are open, some broken, some missing entirely as if gutted from the structure. Dead vines lace across its bone-white facade, like black arteries through adipocere. I want to go in. I want to see how it was left, and wonder to myself, what story played out here? Who was the last person to touch this discarded object, or that? Did they know they would never return? Did they regret not bringing it with them? What were the last words spoken here?
Above all, I am most connected with water, and perhaps that is why I cannot tolerate the intersection of derelict and water. When I was very young, I couldn't stand the sight of something artificial obscured by the murk of a lake. I remember seeing the ladder to a dock within the pea green water, light streaming around it, shadows reaching down into the darkness below. I always imagined there was something down there, something metal and jagged and wrong, waiting to reach up and grab me. I had to steel my nerves to swim over that dark water. Even after I dove off that dock, and swam all the way down to feel the slime and mud at the bottom, 20 feet below, I still avoided the chains that moored the dock in place. Then one year, I was nearly a teenager at the time, I went to the lake for a swim. The other swimmers looked like there was something wrong with their skin. Tiny, thin black lines, like hairs, all over. They were all lined up in front of a hose, which was used to cleanse their bodies of this strange phenomenon, of the sludge that clung to their body hair.
Toxic sludge. The lake had been poisoned by runoff.
Another place miles away, the only natural spring I've ever seen. I remember the natural stone pool into which it flowed, crystal clear. The water was so pure, and so delicious. It isn't, any longer. It, too, has been poisoned.
Fitting, then, that I too have become poisoned. I wonder if I will ever be pure again.
I know what it's like to drown. I don't mean that metaphorically. I mean that I have struggled for breath with all my strength, and found my strength lacking. I have felt my lungs fill with water, and my body go limp. I remember the incredibly clarity of realizing that I am about to die, and the peace of acceptance. Then the weight on me lifted, I pushed to the surface with my last ounce of strength, and I coughed up two lungs' worth of pool water.
Can't say I'm disappointed with how that turned out, but that calmness still haunts me. If there's a moral to this story, I need some more time before I can see it. Unless it's just that "Let's Drown Knightly" isn't a great pool game.
MRI tomorrow. Wish me luck, boys and girls.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Losing my Winter Coat
"Have you been shaving your hands?"
A question of profound dignity and gravitas, it was asked, as so many others, over chicken soup at my parents' house, and by my mother. A little background: ever since I became a teenager I have been, technically speaking, a pretty hairy bastard (...ladies). Not like wolf-man or Chewbacca hairy, but through a mix of genetics, heritage and skin care choices, hairy enough that had you seen me and someone were to ask you to make a statement on the hairiness of that fellow, you might use terms like, "fairly," or "relatively," or "that guy should probably shave his hands."
However, I had not, nor have I ever shaved my hands, nor are they baby-smooth at this very moment. Still, my mom was correct in her assertion that I am not as hairy as I used to be. What body hair I do have is thinner, shorter, lighter and more sparse, such that I am probably now in the, "eh, I guess" category of hairiness, rather than the "oh yes indeed" category I had long occupied.
I hadn't noticed the change before then, honestly, unless you count my concern over my eyebrow, which leads me to believe I'm losing hair all over. It would probably be pretty distressing to me had I maintained any delusions of keeping my hair, but as I haven't and shave it with the same electric razor I use on my face, I hadn't noticed any change there. My eyebrow seems to have stabilized now, so if I'm becoming slightly less of a hairy bastard due to my chemo then I'll just add that to the perks of having brain cancer (it's a short list).
Speaking of chemo, I just started round six last night. I'm pretty ready to stop taking this stuff. I'm tired of spending half of every month exhausted and foggy. I'm tired of dealing with prescription delivery services that screw up, then screw up again when they call to inform me they screwed up the first time, so that I get my pills just hours before I need to take them no matter when I call in my order. Sick and tired of being sick and tired, blah blah blah.
But hey, at least I'm not a yeti anymore.
A question of profound dignity and gravitas, it was asked, as so many others, over chicken soup at my parents' house, and by my mother. A little background: ever since I became a teenager I have been, technically speaking, a pretty hairy bastard (...ladies). Not like wolf-man or Chewbacca hairy, but through a mix of genetics, heritage and skin care choices, hairy enough that had you seen me and someone were to ask you to make a statement on the hairiness of that fellow, you might use terms like, "fairly," or "relatively," or "that guy should probably shave his hands."
However, I had not, nor have I ever shaved my hands, nor are they baby-smooth at this very moment. Still, my mom was correct in her assertion that I am not as hairy as I used to be. What body hair I do have is thinner, shorter, lighter and more sparse, such that I am probably now in the, "eh, I guess" category of hairiness, rather than the "oh yes indeed" category I had long occupied.
I hadn't noticed the change before then, honestly, unless you count my concern over my eyebrow, which leads me to believe I'm losing hair all over. It would probably be pretty distressing to me had I maintained any delusions of keeping my hair, but as I haven't and shave it with the same electric razor I use on my face, I hadn't noticed any change there. My eyebrow seems to have stabilized now, so if I'm becoming slightly less of a hairy bastard due to my chemo then I'll just add that to the perks of having brain cancer (it's a short list).
Speaking of chemo, I just started round six last night. I'm pretty ready to stop taking this stuff. I'm tired of spending half of every month exhausted and foggy. I'm tired of dealing with prescription delivery services that screw up, then screw up again when they call to inform me they screwed up the first time, so that I get my pills just hours before I need to take them no matter when I call in my order. Sick and tired of being sick and tired, blah blah blah.
But hey, at least I'm not a yeti anymore.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
What's the protocol for this?
I'd like to say that I haven't posted lately because I've been very busy but that's only a half-truth. I did have a lot on my plate, but I wasn't picking at that, either. Instead I was staring at my plate, wondering why it kept piling up and how much longer I'd have to wait before it magically resolved itself. It didn't.
I used to wonder if this kind of self-destructive behavior was rooted in questions of self-worth; if I was trying to sabotage the good in my life because I didn't feel that I deserved it. I'm not sure it's fair to pin it all to my disease either. The truth probably lies somewhere in between, as with most things. My last round of chemo hit me harder than the previous (though I think that has more to do with how hard I was pushing myself than my body simply reacting poorly) and I remained mired in a fog for weeks. I wanted to work but I couldn't. I felt physically unable to put words on the page and when I forced myself, the result was terrible and embarrassing. Nothing I'd want anyone to actually read, never mind purchase with their hard-earned money. Or, you know, department funding. Whatever. Thankfully my boss is patient and understanding enough to help me find solutions rather than point out faults, and, when necessary, light a fire under my ass. I've found my voice again and cleaned off most of my plate, so I felt it was time to check in.
I'm faced with a new question this morning. The president of the company had another sort of cancer when he was younger and feels that this is a point of connection between us, which is fine. His variety wasn't quite the same as what I had but I'm not going to turn down sympathy and compassion from the man in the big chair. This morning he sent me an e-mail on a new "cure" for brain cancer. It's a sort of supplement called "essiac tea." Well, he's the thing. Essiac tea does not cure any cancer (surprise!). In scientific trials it was shown to have no effect on cancer whatsoever until you get to large enough doses... at which point it may accelerate tumor growth or flat out kill the patient. The FDA has described it as a "fake cancer cure" and Sloan-Kettering has advised patients to "avoid" it. So when my president says, "it couldn't hurt," how do I respond?
I thank him politely, promise I'll look into it (which I have), and hope he never, ever mentions it again.
Anyone else have any similar experiences?
I used to wonder if this kind of self-destructive behavior was rooted in questions of self-worth; if I was trying to sabotage the good in my life because I didn't feel that I deserved it. I'm not sure it's fair to pin it all to my disease either. The truth probably lies somewhere in between, as with most things. My last round of chemo hit me harder than the previous (though I think that has more to do with how hard I was pushing myself than my body simply reacting poorly) and I remained mired in a fog for weeks. I wanted to work but I couldn't. I felt physically unable to put words on the page and when I forced myself, the result was terrible and embarrassing. Nothing I'd want anyone to actually read, never mind purchase with their hard-earned money. Or, you know, department funding. Whatever. Thankfully my boss is patient and understanding enough to help me find solutions rather than point out faults, and, when necessary, light a fire under my ass. I've found my voice again and cleaned off most of my plate, so I felt it was time to check in.
I'm faced with a new question this morning. The president of the company had another sort of cancer when he was younger and feels that this is a point of connection between us, which is fine. His variety wasn't quite the same as what I had but I'm not going to turn down sympathy and compassion from the man in the big chair. This morning he sent me an e-mail on a new "cure" for brain cancer. It's a sort of supplement called "essiac tea." Well, he's the thing. Essiac tea does not cure any cancer (surprise!). In scientific trials it was shown to have no effect on cancer whatsoever until you get to large enough doses... at which point it may accelerate tumor growth or flat out kill the patient. The FDA has described it as a "fake cancer cure" and Sloan-Kettering has advised patients to "avoid" it. So when my president says, "it couldn't hurt," how do I respond?
I thank him politely, promise I'll look into it (which I have), and hope he never, ever mentions it again.
Anyone else have any similar experiences?
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
No News is Good News
And good news is good news too.
I haven't had a whole lot to report lately. Things have been pretty quiet and I rather hope they stay that way. I guess that's just how this stage of treatment works; things are either boring or bad. Given the choices, I'd prefer boring. It'd be nice if I could try out one of those new treatments even if only for something to write about.
I did get a call from my neuro-oncologist in Manhattan with a bit of good news. He and his fellow took it upon themselves to go over my MRIs since the end of my radiation treatment, pixel by pixel. They're in agreement that my cancer has not merely been stable, but has not changed in the slightest. They are increasingly of the opinion that the two dots of enhancement that show up on my MRI are actually just scar tissue, which I've got to say would be pretty awesome. So far that doesn't equate to any sort of change in my ongoing treatment, but they say if there hasn't been any change by October we can discuss ending my chemotherapy early. That wouldn't quite be a confirmation that I'm cured, but it's about as close as I can get. I'll take it.
In other news, the good people over at Cancer Forums have offered me a position as a moderator in their Brain Cancer section, and I have accepted. To anyone who hasn't taken a look yet, it's a great community that offers support, advice, networking, and even just a sounding board for all patients of all kinds of cancer, as well as their friends, families and caretakers. The stories told on those boards are honest, sometimes sad, sometimes inspiring, and I am honored for the opportunity to help maintain the level of quality that brought me there in the first place. I've made many friends through my participation in the forum, including regular posters, other moderators, and the occasional individual who has contacted me privately for advice. I like to think that maybe I've helped a few people along the way. It's a great resource and I would recommend it to anyone.
Happy Leap Day, everyone.
I haven't had a whole lot to report lately. Things have been pretty quiet and I rather hope they stay that way. I guess that's just how this stage of treatment works; things are either boring or bad. Given the choices, I'd prefer boring. It'd be nice if I could try out one of those new treatments even if only for something to write about.
I did get a call from my neuro-oncologist in Manhattan with a bit of good news. He and his fellow took it upon themselves to go over my MRIs since the end of my radiation treatment, pixel by pixel. They're in agreement that my cancer has not merely been stable, but has not changed in the slightest. They are increasingly of the opinion that the two dots of enhancement that show up on my MRI are actually just scar tissue, which I've got to say would be pretty awesome. So far that doesn't equate to any sort of change in my ongoing treatment, but they say if there hasn't been any change by October we can discuss ending my chemotherapy early. That wouldn't quite be a confirmation that I'm cured, but it's about as close as I can get. I'll take it.
In other news, the good people over at Cancer Forums have offered me a position as a moderator in their Brain Cancer section, and I have accepted. To anyone who hasn't taken a look yet, it's a great community that offers support, advice, networking, and even just a sounding board for all patients of all kinds of cancer, as well as their friends, families and caretakers. The stories told on those boards are honest, sometimes sad, sometimes inspiring, and I am honored for the opportunity to help maintain the level of quality that brought me there in the first place. I've made many friends through my participation in the forum, including regular posters, other moderators, and the occasional individual who has contacted me privately for advice. I like to think that maybe I've helped a few people along the way. It's a great resource and I would recommend it to anyone.
Happy Leap Day, everyone.
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