Why you gotta make things so complicated!?

The last couple of days I have been having some pains in my leg.  I had been experiencing so cramping in my leg over the last couple of months so at first I thought that is what it was, but within a day or two I knew something was off, then Sunday night I woke and my knee was stiff and my calf felt like someone had overinflated a blood pressure cuff on it, so when I went in for my treatment on Monday I asked about it and then sent me to the nurse practitioner who sent me to the ultrasound guy who sent the results to the radiologist who sent the report to the nurse practitioner who wrote me a prescription because apparently I have a "rather large" blood clot in my leg.  I have to say that already today I am feeling considerably better and I am glad to say that I have completed cycle one!  Woohoo! 5 more to go! 6 weeks since my initial surgery and I am doing pretty well even if I do have a stupid blood clot.

Really though the blood clot has us all a little upset.  I had a cousin who broke her leg and died quite suddenly from a blood clot related to her injury and so the mention of one has everyone a little anxious.  She, my cousin Susan, was a young newlywed with her whole life ahead of her and so when she died so suddenly it was a shock to us all.  Now I am the hyperfocus of everyone's attention around here.  I think it will be okay, but it did set us all on edge.  I figure if it is time to go then it is time to go but I don't think that this will be how it happens.  It is just another challenge to get through so we can enjoy the blessings that come from overcoming challenges.  My mom sent me an article a few weeks ago and I have been avoiding my emails since all this started but I was going through and clearing out my inbox and decided to finally read it.  I truly believe that sometimes what may seem to be procrastination on my part can sometimes be my inner voice telling me to wait just a little longer.  Like with my hernia surgery I could have done it months, even years ago, but I waited until there was something else to find which might have otherwise been missed.  I could have read this article weeks ago, but reading it today was the right time as we have been dealing with this new and unexpected complication.

The article quotes from that beloved author, C.S. Lewis and I share that quote here and will provide the link for the article afterwards.

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself. (Mere Christianity) 

                  Read the article here: http://www.ldsmag.com/article/1/12837/1/page-1

I definitely needed to read this today. To put things into perspective once again.  I am not as sure as I was the first time that I will overcome this, and maybe that is good.  I have to trust more in my Heavenly Father's plan and in Him, and Christ's atonement.  I have to really put my life in his hands and be willing to do what he wants me to do.  I am not in control this time but that doesn't mean that things are out of control.  I can only continue to enjoy what time I am given and do my best in this adventure called Life!

Round 2 - TKO!

Well, last week was my first round of chemo.  I have to say I am a little disappointed. Last time I went through this adventure I never threw up once.  Last week THREE days in row. (Don't worry I am not going to spend a lot of time dwelling on this!)  This week though, it has been all I can do to stay awake, which in my opinion is worse.  I have slept for days it seems.  I can hardly keep my eyes open!  I may not have a lot of time left on this earth and I don't want to spend it asleep!  Still, my poor body is in recovery mode.  After surgery I went home only to return a week later with water on my lung.  About 2 liters!  Then about a week later after that back again with more water in my lung and they did a pleurocentisis to drain my lung and hopefully keep it from filling up again.  Four liters that time!  Yuck! Don't ask me where it all comes from! Well the whole thing was stupidly painful and I had tubes sticking out of my side for a couple of days and am now nursing an inconvenient wound but I guess it could be worse.  I am feeling a little whiney today in case you couldn't tell.  I hate when I get this way.  And I know it will be better tomorrow but I still just hate losing time to sleep... funny really...just a few weeks ago I was thinking I would love a couple of days to just catch up on sleep and be lazy...

Next week ends cycle one of chemo with loads of tests the next week and then we start cycle 2. Six cycles total as long as they are having the desired affect.  If not we will try something new. Still enjoying the adventure that is Life!

At it again!

Three years...almost to the day...and I have cancer again.  I started this blog three years ago, but I was so very confident that I would beat it that I never wrote more than one entry.  Now I wishing I had more of a record of what I went through so I could compare it to now.  I now have Stage 4 Recurrent Ovarian Cancer.  Doctors say that worst case scenario I have a few months, and best I have about 18.  There is about a 1% survival rate past the 5 year mark.  That being said I am still hopeful that this is just a setback and I will get past this and if it is my time I will be sorry to go but at the same time excited to see what awaits on the other side.

A little background on how I ended up here...again.  Actually it was complications from the previous surgery. When I went in to the doctor to have my staples removed from my surgery 3 years ago my abdomen separated and it created a hernia which has been irritating over the years but nothing I felt needed to be corrected immediately.  This past allergy season had me sneezing a lot which I knew was causing some issues with my hernia but I kept putting off going to the doctor because the first one was so traumatic and I didn't want my abdomen opened again.  I started having some issues with my digestion and I did what I could for it but it kept getting worse and I starting experiencing some considerable pain. Finally one morning I woke in so much pain I had my roommate take me to the emergency room.  They did a scan and found that my bowel had impacted into my hernia and sent me to a surgeon, Dr. Sutherland. (I give his name simply because he did a beautiful job on the surgery and has proven to be a great doctor who I would highly recommend to anyone and everyone!) He went in to correct the hernia and found some spots on my diaphragm and elsewhere and took biopsies which turned out to be cancerous. I am sure I could have had the surgery sooner but they might have missed those spots and I might not have known until it was too late to treat the cancer.  I believe everything happens when it does for a reason.  I always been fairly in tune with my body and I while I knew I needed to get my hernia checked but I chose to wait.  Maybe that was my stubborn fears or maybe that was my way of letting my body get to a point where it could be clear that there was more there to deal with that the hernia.  I trust that Heavenly Father has a plan and I can but hope that I am in tune with what he has planned for me and this was how it was to work out even if it is not ideal, going into chemo still recovering from surgery and additional procedures (more about those later), but it is better than not knowing and just letting the cancer win.

I am not too excited about losing my hair again.  I was pretty brave about it the first time, but it was traumatic.  I know it will be happening again soon.  I know the signs now and I can feel it coming.  I sure I will have a whole entry later to devote to that.  So that is where I am at now.  I get chemo every Monday and so I am going to try to blog each week around that time.  I find that I don't feel as well later in the week so I have to take advantage of the good times while I can.

For now I will continue to enjoy the adventure that is Life!

New Beginnings

My mother has been bugging me (in the nicest way) to start writing about all that I am going through right now and with all that has been going on, this has been the first day that I have had the energy and drive to even write these words. I wondered whether to continue on one of my existing blogs or to start with this one which I had created some time ago but never put anything into. Today when I logged into my blogs, this one seemed to be waiting for me. So here I am. We'll see how far I get with it.

On about the 15th of February this year I was told that I have uterine cancer. I had the biopsy and it came out positive (which has always seemed strange to me to have a positive cancer test result. I promise you it is one of the most negative I have ever received). Just over a month later on the 25th of March I went in for surgery - hysterectomy. It was to be a three to four hour surgery but resulted in 9 hours of surgery and the discovery of tumors all over my abdomen as well as positive result (there is that word again) for ovarian cancer also. Along with the hysterectomy, they removed my appendix, my omentum, parts of several lymph nodes, tumors on my diaphragm and 4 inches of my colon.

Stage 2 uterine cancer, stage 3 ovarian cancer. Just like that. It started with a long lasting sense of general illness. General malaise.I went to the clinic three times, started various antibiotics and so forth for a flu, UTI, so forth. During the third visit the doctor on call thought she felt a lump in my abdomen and called for a CT scan. They told me to see the gynecologist. And so forth.

Now it is almost 4 months since the surgery and I am halfway through with my chemotherapy. I will be filling in more details and impressions as I continue (hopefully) to write all this down, but I wanted to get the basics out there. A framework to start from. It has all been so overwhelming and strange and educational (for lack of a better word). I have a lot to fill in but for now at least I have made a beginning.