My Cancer Diaries
If you check out my bio you see that I put down I’m
living with cancer. I choose on this
blog not to concentrate on my disease because I feel cancer doesn’t define who
I am. But I must be realistic and
therefor I will now and then share with you my experiences in hopes it might
help others. I scan the internet and see
I’m not alone and the stories others share on the worldwide web have given me
hope in the quicksand of reality.
There will be times that I might get on my soap box
and give my opinion on things or tell little fun stories or down the road show
obnoxious videos I make to be silly. You
don’t have to like what I say and that is okay but when you are given a death
sentence such as me you have a different outlook on life. So sometimes I might pass on the lessons my
parents taught me or what I have learned in my 48 years. My mother always told me, “Learn from my
mistakes.” So therefore she was an excellent teacher, Ha!
Some blogs are defined by crafts, art, sports etc…
mine is just life. I call it Tuesday@six
because I meet with a group of fascinating women that like to write at the
local library every Tuesday at 6PM. We
differ in age but we enjoy the creative process of writing and storytelling. I
love their books they are working on as well as their critique of what I’m
working on. They open my eyes to new
outlooks of my vision in writing. We are
not published (at this time) but as Miley Cyrus sings, “It’s the climb.”
I figure that if I put a goal to write something on
the blog by the time I meet with them it would push and help me in my writing
and finishing my book. I’m just a few
chapters away from the finish line of the first draft, Yippee!
I might even share a little of that with you as
well. I’m sorry if I haven’t been as
consistent but in the last few months I’ve been doing what the country song
says, “Live like you were dying.”
I will share some of those adventures with you a
little later, but for now here is an excerpt from my personal journal about my
first pain of cancer and hearing what it could be.
October 5, 2010
Well I got the news today that just
blew my socks off. Definitely wasn’t
expecting it. What I thought might be
gallbladder or kidney stones or even endometriosis looks on the CT scan as
metastatic cancer. Not even sure if I am
spelling it right. But cancer is all I heard.
It is a big mass and they are not sure where it originates from.
The pain started nine days ago at 3:45
AM September 27, 2010. It woke me up and
I didn’t go back to sleep. At first
kidney stones came to mind. But as I tried to work my shift it felt as though
it was under my right ribs. It moved
downward by Tuesday and was all over the right side. Took Naproxen for my sore neck on Sunday
night and one of the side effects is stomach pain so I called the Doctor. I was able to get in at once when I told them
what medication I had taken.
He touched my stomach and I wanted to
hit him. I could see it in his eyes that
this was not normal but he kept his cool.
The pain was unbearable. I looked
like I was 8 months pregnant but my legs looked skinnier. He ordered a CT scan and the earliest I could
get in was Friday. I had to work till
2PM and they had an appointment for 3PM.
Perfect I thought.
I held my breath as the machine told me
too and the donut shape moved up and down my body. I was told the doctor would have the answer
by Monday. The pain continued throughout
the weekend even though I tried to get the bedrooms ready and put in a new bed
in the master.
It took all day because I could only
work on it for about 20 minutes then I needed to rest. I go to work and it is the same. By the time I’m done all I do is come home
and veg out with the heating pad. All my
energy was and is sucked out of me.
I was in the school office when I got
the news. It was like a freight train
had come through. I was totally not
expecting the “C” word, maybe stones, maybe endo, but not cancer. My boss was around me and her sister. I could not stop writing words down as the
doctor kept talking about what did not look good. He said he didn’t want to scare me but that
it wasn’t good.
I wrote the words metastatic
cancer and pointed to it so my boss could see.
They shut the office door. She
had a scare this year and I believe she understood what I was going through.
Afterwards I just started crying and said I wasn’t expecting to hear this. She told me not to worry that her mass ended
up not being cancer, so wait until I knew more. Of course I will have to go under the knife.
We won’t know for sure until then.
to be continued...
I’ll later share with you about telling my family,
hearing the final analysis, the fun of chemo (I’m totally being sarcastic) and
going bald (every woman’s dream). Until next time go out there…climb that
mountain and live like you were dying.
