Saying no to chemo - thoughts?

[mimi85]

Hi all, I've been following the posts here and finally got up the nerve to post. I was diagnosed with leukemia (CLL) in 2007 and haven't had any treatments. I'm at the point now where my RBC is horrible - I've had one blood transfusion and several iron transfusions. Another bone marrow biopsy last week and I have to have labs taken every week now. Oh, and a PT Scan this Saturday.

Unfortunately, I have so many other problems that I don't think I would survive chemo anyway. Sjogren's Syndrome (the worst!!), Barrett's Esophagus (waiting for the results of an endoscopy), acoustic neuroma - so I'm deaf in left ear (no big at this point), had emergency brain surgery in 2012 to remove a mengioma that got out of control. It was successfully removed however there are some "atypical cells" left. The doctors couldn't agree. One wanted me to have radiation on them every day for 6 weeks, the other said to get an MRI every 6 months which is what I'm doing. My recent one last month showed all ok now, except slight dementia starting (my husband would attest to this).

Mild COPD, some sort of bowel problems as yet not diagnosed, severe bladder prolapse - I won't get into the gory details on the last two.

Well, there is even more but I'm sure I've bored everyone enough. My veins are thrashed so during my BMB the doctor said they would put a port in when I started chemo. There were other people in the room so I didn't feel comfortable talking to the her then. I have a follow up appointment in about a week and I've decided to tell her no thanks to chemo. I can barely walk out to the mailbox, my fatigue is so bad.

I haven't dwelled on this at all; I knew the day would come so I've made my decision. Any thoughts/support would be helpful. Best to all of you, Jennifer aka Mimi