National Cancer Survivors Day

In the fall of 2011 I was told I had Leukemia (APL). I spent a month in the hospital. I bled out when they tried to put in a pic line in my neck and spent 4 days in CCU. When my platelets were extremely low my eyes hemorrhage and it left me mostly blind for about 4 months until the clots dissolved. Once I left the hospital I spent a year and a half on 3 different forms of chemo, never spending more than a week or two between doses.

If I wasn't in the outpatient clinic with an IV in my arm I was at home. My immune system has been so weak that I have had to keep myself away from people as much a possible so I didn't get sick. Needless to say, this left me with a lot of time online.

During my treatment I found out 2 people I knew from my college years passed away from cancer, one this past December. This really hurt me a lot. I didn't understand why I was alive and these other people who have impacted a lot more lives than I have were taken. I told myself I can't fuck up and not do anything with my life. I can't just sit here, go to work, come home and sit in front of the tv like 90% of the rest of America. I had to make my life worth saving.

During this time I have found Anonymous. I have always been active in charity work and volunteering and there were certain Ops that really hit home. With the structure of how Anon runs it was easy for me to be helpful relaying information and use the resources I have from my computer.

Some Ops that have really helped me over the past few months has been AnonFM, OpELE, and OpAntiBully. I have gained a lot of really good friends and have been helped through a lot of really hard times. In the real world my husband and parents have been the only ones who have seen me really sick and up for days on end. The people in these groups have also seen me this way and have helped me through some really shitty days and nights. Thank you so much for all you have done for me. I love you all. You are family to me.

Today I am in remission, last week was my last week of chemo and today is National Cancer Survivors Day. I couldn't have made it without the love and support of those around me.

OpAPL

For many years I have put in computer time with SETI@Home and now Folding@Home. I have decided to create a Folding team of AnonFM friends and anyone else who wishes to help out. I am hoping to help bring this great project to the forefront of peoples minds and let them know there is ways they can help others without taking any time or money away from them. If you are on the internet then you have a computer unless you are using a smart phone or tablet. How about helping people out in your computers down time?  I have created a team on Folding@Home for AnonFM and other Anon called OpAPL. I have named it this because on Oct 17, 2011 I was diagnosed with Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia. This form of Leukemia is caused from the proteins in my body not behaving correctly and turning my blood into cancer cell instead of white and red blood cells and platelets. This is one of the things Folding@Home is researching.

What is Folding?

In your body, proteins are like worker ants. When something needs done the proteins will group together or "fold." Sometimes the proteins do not fold correctly and can cause many types of diseases including Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes.

What is Folding@Home?

Some of you may know what SETI@Home is. Folding@Home is the same idea. When you download a program from their website it will analyze information sent to you in "packets." When your computer is finished with a packet it will send the information back to the website and automatically get another packet. When using the Folding@Home program, the students and scientists at Stanford University will go over the packets to learn more about the process of folding. Hopefully they will learn ways to prevent misfolds or have a better understanding of the diseases misfolding can cause.

How do I help?

Go to their download page and get the program. Once it is downloaded and running you can right click the red cog on your toolbar and go to Configure. Once there you can enter a screen name you want to use and a team number. This OpAPL team number is 160138. Also in the configure you can set it to use so much memory.  Even running max you don't notice a difference when surfing the net or playing music/videos. So long as your computer is on and the program is running it will automatically process the data and send and receive new packets. My user name is Autumnn because that is my gamer name and I have been running this program for over 2 years. As of this posting I have ran over 230 packets. The only maintenance I have done with this program is making sure it starts up when I restart my computer. I never notice it running and it uses very little RAM 

I want to thank you so much for reading this. With my type of cancer there was no survival rate 30 years ago. Even 10 years ago there was only a 30% chance. Today with all the new research I have a 75-90% chance of staying in remission. I'm not asking for you to do any hard labor or to donate any money. Im just asking for a little bit of your computer CPU.