A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Brunei...

In the nicest possible way, of course.... Listen, I'm generally pretty upbeat. I can find a positive in most situations. I've always considered myself an optimistic realist - I try to see things as they are, but in the best light possible. However, this boulder that's been thrown into the pond of my life has got me all kinds of fucked up. And seeing the statistics on this particular kind of cancer does not help. I'm going to be angry. I'm going to be sad. I'm most likely going to get depressed. I'm going to be disappointed. I'm going to feel a lot of "negative" emotions. How do I know? Because I'm HUMAN .  And I've already felt a lot of them since I got my diagnosis. Hell, I've felt a lot of these at different points in my life . All of these emotions are NORMAL and NATURAL and HEALTHY. I am going to feel them, and that's okay. So, please, if I post something that's not all sunshine and rainbows and unicorn farts, please don...

  So many doctors, and more to come So far, I have an oncologist, a gastroenterologist, and two surgeons on my medical care team. Soon to be added are a case manager, a counselor, possibly a third surgeon, maybe a second oncologist, and I think a nutritionist has been mentioned, we'll see. Apparently, cancer care is a complicated business. With good reason, especially with one as rare and aggressive as this one is supposed to be. So far, I like everyone on my team - except one surgeon. He just rubbed me the wrong way at our consultation. I like the second surgeon a lot more, but he and the first are actually colleagues, so he might step in occasionally, we'll see. The first surgeon recommended a Whipple procedure (I am NOT going to link it, but if you want to look it up, go ahead - I do NOT recommend it. It's terrifying.), chemo, and radiation, which scared the shit out of me. The second surgeon said that a Whipple might  be needed, but from my scans and tests so far, he do...

So. Many. Tests. So I first got sick back in February 2024. I'd gone to Memphis to see family and to hang out with my dad for his birthday, and for the birthday of my baby brother, Coran, who died in July 2023. I wasn't feeling great the whole trip - I was vaguely nauseated, vaguely tired, vaguely had indigestion, everything was vague. Nothing was bad enough to completely keep me from eating, but I did lose some of my appetite. When I returned to Oakland the following week, nothing had gotten worse, but it also hadn't gotten better. I'm rarely sick, and when I am it only lasts for a few days, not more than a week. So I decided that, if I didn't feel better the next day, I was going to see my doctor. I woke up with yellow eyes - jaundice. I promptly freaked out and called the clinic. They had me come in that afternoon, and get blood drawn and a whole bunch of other tests to check my liver, pancreas, etc. The day they got my results back, the nurse practitioner called...

Frequently Asked Questions What the heck is cholangiocarcinoma ?  Cholangiocarcinoma, or bile duct cancer, is a type of cancer that forms in the bile ducts. It's fairly rare, with estimates of it occurring in 0.5–2 people per 100,000 per year. It's also pretty aggressive. Mine is extrahepatic, meaning it's outside the liver, in the common bile duct. A couple of links:  Wikipedia article Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation Where the heck is Brunei? Brunei is a tiny, tiny country on the island of Borneo, which it shares with Malaysia and Indonesia.  Do you always curse this much? In my personal life? Absolutely. I LOVE profanity. I generally try not to use the GD word around people who believe in god, by their request, but otherwise, all bets are off. If you ask me nicely, I'll try not to curse around you in person. Here, on MY blog, I will curse to my heart's content. Professionally? Absolutely not. I teach kids, for fuck's sake! I have more questions! Drop me a ...

 I'll get a new picture eventually, but this one is so good! Chandon vineyards in Australia. Hey guys, it's me, Nikki. The first time I started a blog, Black Girl in China (lost to time and my own stupidity 😭), it was 2012, and I was on my way to Wanzhou, Chongqing, China. It was my first time traveling internationally (except for a week in an all-inclusive resort in Mexico back in the 90s - is Club Med still around?), and my first job teaching English as a foreign language...actually, my first time teaching English at all! It was the beginning of what became an amazing new career in teaching English as a foreign language internationally.  I've now taught in three countries: China for three years, South Korea for five, and Mexico for one. I've started and ended an accent-reduction/Standard American English Pronunciation coaching business, started a master's in Education, dropped out, started another master's in Instructional Design (only three classes left!), t...