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10 months and counting and many more to follow for being CANCER FREE!!! It has been a long journey and I have a whole lifetime full of this to go through! It is always a stressful day for me to go into these appointments and await the test results. Everyone always tells me to stay positive on my thinking/thoughts. The problem is that it is not that easy. I am really appreciative of all of the support and positive thinking everyone is sending my way, but the reality is I have been told that everything will be fine since day 1 and look at me now. Yes I am CANCER FREE and that is huge, but I got here by being told I had a tumor, cancer, having my leg amputated, chemo, etc. To me when I go in for these appointments I am thinking the good and bad. It can go either way and to wait for those results knowing they can come back and say “Dani I am sorry but we found something” is the worst news and I dont know how I can possibly get through another battle like that. Honestly I have come out of this a stronger person and I am positive I can handle anything that comes my way, but to be able to be positive it takes a lot of anger, saddness, depression, and just overall anxiety of the situation. This is all really hard to explain and I am trying to do it in a way that people can understand, but the reality is that until you are in that position it is really hard for that person to truely understand/comphrehend what they are going through.

Every month I go and talk to my Cancer Counselor (Dr. Drew look a like!) and he really helps put things into perspective for me. It is nice to have an outlet to talk to that asks what I am feeling and can say I am so sorry and then give me inside to why I am feeling that way. I was very uneasy about going to a Counselor in the beginning, but honestly it has helped in more ways than one. We actually dont sit there and talk about my last year and about Cancer. We tend to talk about my life and what makes me me.

So today my mom, for the first time since June, tagged along to my Drs appointments and test appointment today. I was really shocked. Usually my dad taggs along/takes me, but he had a lot of work to do. I guess he deserved a break! So my first Doctors appointment of the day was with my Orthopedic Surgeon (the man who took me leg!), Dr. Ronald Williams. He is an amazing Doctor and has incredible bed side manner. I am suprised I like him and respect him as much as I do since he met me for the first time April 7thish of last year and said “so to get rid of this Cancer we need to schedule a surgery and remove your leg.” I was angry and kicked  him and his 20 associates out of the room. I think I am so pleased with him because he has had 3 other cases like mine and he cared a lot about my situation and wanted me to beat the odds and has done everything he could to help me get there. When I was in my first surgery on April 2nd having my tumor removed the pathologist actually called Dr. Williams while I was in surgery and told him there was a very rare tumor and Dr. Williams said he wanted my case and even talked to my Podiatrist who was doing the surgery about how to remove it. He has been there from the beginning and even took my situation to the medical board for review to find the best solution, and he called other top notch doctors out there to find a plan to kill this dang Cancer! He usually only sees his patients 1 or 2 times after surgery and then a year + after that; however because his previous patients who had this Cancer (sadly did not make it after their amputations) he is wanting to stay in constant communication with me to make sure I am doing ok. He even told me Chemo was the way to go and has been a great resource along the way. I have not seen him since last June; which I was in my 2nd round of Chemo at that time (I believe).  He had me taking a nerve medication since my amputation on April 15th 2010 called Gabapentin. I was told it was supposed to help with the phantom pains and help your nerve endings heal after the amputation. I ended up having problems with having painful phantom pains and my nerves would shoot up and I would be restless and have a hard time sleeping at night with the pain. After careful thoughts I decided on my own to stop taking the medication and have found the symptoms have gotten better by about 80%. Now that I am done with Chemo I wanted to follow up with him to say “hey look at me now I have hair again” and to get his advice on the medication. He actually told me that he was going to tell me to discontinue it as it has almost been a year and was completely fine with me stopping the medication. Said different people have different reactions. He is really pleased with my progress and said he wants me to go in for a Pet Scan in the next month or two for a full body scan since that will mark the year anniversary since my last one. He also wants me back at that time so he can review it. As much as I do not like going to Doctors or just sitting there while they nag on me for various of reasons, it is nice to have someone in my corner wanting to make my life available for me to live for.

Before I saw this Doctor (Dr. Williams) they actually send me downstairs (elevator!) for a test I was supposed to do after I saw him for my appointment that afternoon. He wanted to see the test results. Usually the test I was having done today takes 5 mins and about 2 hours for the results to go through; however he is able to log onto the database and look at the tests on his computer infront of me and tell me what is up! As I sat there watching him and his associate go through the tests I kept seeing spots and started thinking to myself about how I was going to hear bad news on my 10 months and I just started freaking out about it inside. FINALLY he goes “great everything looks great.” PHEW! He is bada*$ and when he wants something he has the power to do it. He is very respected and does not accept patients who walk into his office it is by referral only. He is only in office 2 days a week and in surgery 2 days and then at the University as he teaches classes there. He is a very intelligent Doctor and I am so happy God brought me to Texas to be near my family, which led my mom to looking on the internet and finding a podiatrist who treats the Spurs, to the pathologist being friends with Dr Williams and calling him for advice while in surgery. Just another example of how things happen in life for a reason. I strongly believe that and feel that God put me in this situation to show me how people truley care and to get the word out there with my blog and the fundraser my friend is doing for me. I have met so many wonderful people and seeing how amazing people are for coming forward and showing their support is amazing. I have complete strangers writing me letters, emails, writing me comments on here, etc. I have always struggled with low self esteem and confidence. I will probably always struggle with it, but my biggest thing was wanting acceptance from everyone and wanting to get their approval on everything in my life from where I live, the shirt I want to buy, the milk I drink, to what I should write about on here. I have always tended to push myself away from others and even though I had a lot of friends growing up, but I couldnt help but think they just wanted to be nice to me instead of truely liking me. Through this whole situation some friends have disapeared and old friends have reapeared, I have new friends coming in my life, and my current friends became even closer with me. I feel like God put me in this situation to show me that people really do care and it is situations like this that bring people closer together. The people who have backed away from me are obviously not my friends and not apart of my contsruction crew for my life. It is really true for everything in life, in my opinion.

Dr. Williams knows I have a blog and he said that I should write a book to help even more people out there. I wouldnt even know how to write a book or what to do with it. Maybe it can be a book of a bunch of people writing into it. Kind of like the Chicken Soup books. I could talk about my story and then have other fellow cancer patients and family surviors write into it as well and then collectiviely give advice and input for people who may be facing a difficult situation in their life or loved ones life with Cancer and they can look at this to know THEY ARE NOTTTT ALONE. Maybe that will be my summer project. What do you think? I could use the proceeds from the sales to go towards CCS research (brother Russell and a couple of others are working on a research fund/group) and then medical bills/prosthesis. It sounds like I have already hit my $7500 yearly maximum from the last 2 months and now that I have to get my new health insurance in the next month I will have a new deductible to hit and yearly maximum. I will probably have 14K out of pocket for the year. I cant even fathum that. That is a down payment on a house, amazing trips around the word, a car, college etc. I am in the Insurance industry so I am no stranger to these problems with the patients responsibilty, I just wish there were changes to improve that for everyone. Who knows, maybe I will have to get a second job to help supplement my medical costs. I have thought about selling Avon just by word of mouth. May be the way to go. What do you think?

Anyways, I am procrastinating. I took today off as I had a day full of Doctor appointments and havent slept in 2 days; which is normal for me before I go in for these tests. I get so anxious that I cant sleep (even with my sleeping pill I have been prescribed), hard to eat, upset stomache, and major depression kicks in. So I decided to take a nap as soon as I got home from work but everyone at work started emailing me and calling me at that time so I was not able to get a good nap in. I knew tonight I had to get a lot of work done for training classes I am working on for my employees, but it is 1am and I still haven’t gotten much done and I have to start at 8am. I feel like I am in school all over again and pulling all nighters for assignments/tests/papers that are due that day. I am so happy with my new job promotion and trying to do an amazing job for work, myself, and most importantly for my family. I want them to be proud of me and know that I am a 26 year old with drive and I want to succeed in so many ways. The last week I have struggled getting tons done as I have had a lot on my mind thinking about the next day. Maybe I took too much on too fast at work, but I just have to do my best and that is all I can manage and I just hope it still makes others happy.

Well anyways BACK to my days events, after I saw Dr. Williams I went upstairs (using the elevator) to see Dr. Monica Mita my Oncologist. Her and Williams work closely together and that is how I was put in her hands! She is always a great Doctor and has incredible bed side manner. Every time she sees me she comes up to me and hugs me and makes the appointments really personable. She truely cares and for someone to be in her job doing what she has to, she is doing great. I want to write her a letter sometime to tell her that I really appreciate her support, care, and overall the kindness she sends off. In her job she sees a lot of patients who are usually extremely ill and may have a short life expectancy and could die at anytime. That would be a tough job. I used to go to the Doctors office every day or couple of days for 8 months so you really get to know everyone and when that person is sick and doesnt make it, it is really tough as you have that connection. Before I went in and saw her my gal at the front who handles appointments told me about this guy who was making his rounds. His mom was extremely ill and lost her battle to Cancer last week. Obviously because of HIPAA she could not tell me anything more, but he was so appreciative of everyones care to his mom that he wanted to come in immideatly to say thank you. Everyone there has a really tough job but does it so well. I really like where I am at and cant imagine going anywhere else.

As usual, I start my appointment off by doing a weigh in, blood pressure/oxygen/temp reading, and then blood work. FUN times! I used to hate getting weighed until they started telling me how much weight I was losing every day and it became a fun game to see what I lost during that time. I lost about 100lbs last year from the ‘chemo diet’, but sadly have gained it back on fast; which is now going to lead to complications with getting my prosthesis as soon as I would like. My blood pressure is still high and currently after meeting my new PCP I have been monitoring my blood pressure so my PCP can decide if I need to be put on a low dose of blood pressure medications. I then had to do the one thing I do not like. I learned to handle the needle pokes as for 8 months I would get poked daily and sometimes more than once daily. It got to the point where they would say breathe in and out and poke me ad. I wouldnt even notice the needle going in. That is how I like it! Now that I only go 1 time per month now, they do the blood work through my double port on my right upper chest. Some of you had the privaledge of touching it or seeing what it potentially looks like. It is a very interesting thing, but I had to have surgery to put it in for the Chemo drugs. Every month I have to have it flushed with Heprin to make sure they keep the tube open in my veins from blood clots; which could potentially be a problem if a blood clot formed there. The needles are thick, long, and curve halfway through the needle. When they put it in they have this whole process before they can stab me. They have to clean the area with this medical sponge/soap, then they use a freeze spray to make the whole large needle going inside of my upper chest less painful (doesnt always help), and then they go in for the stab. The gal who did it today has never done it before on me. So obviously I was really tense and anxious which doesnt help. So she went in and MISSED the port. OMG did that hurt. I honestly was holding onto my wheelchair rail so I didnt slap her and I was biting my tounge in fear I would start screaming or swearing and scaring the patients. So instead of taking it out she was turning the needle inside of me and trying to reposition it. So after many failed attempts that man who always does it came to the rescue. He had to take the needle out and do it again but thankfully he didnt miss. My mom was sitting back and she knows I dread having this done, but she kept saying you are fine, stay positive. Love you mom but boy did I want to hit you or make you have done what they were doing to me.

After the painful needle stabbing and dreadful weight gain from the last month, I went to the patients room and waited for Dr. Monica Mita. She came in all smiles and told me what I just found out that there were no signs of any activity; which is great! She said that next month we will do another xray test and then the month following we will do the Pet Scan. Now for any of you who do not know those tests, you have to go in and have an IV put in and sit in a chair laying back for about an hour for this contrast to go through your system. After the hour you go into the Pet Scan room (loud and extremely cold) and lay on this very thin, narrow, cold, hard table with NO pillow or blanket. They have 2 MRI like machines the table moves through for a reading on every MM of your body. It is about a 3 hour test if I remember correctly. It is really hard because you have to lay still and you are laying flat and the shape of my spine is curved so it makes it tough and then not having another leg support your body it just is uncomfortable. These tests could be around 10K; so Insurance companies tend to deny them as often as a year due to cost. I am coming up on my year from having one done so it is time. They show basically everything; which is why it is so expensive. I am looking forward to getting to my year mark, getting that test done, having GOOD test results, and then making plansnd to go to Vegas or something!

I found out recently that one of my best friends from college, Angela, is coming to visit me in mid April for a week and spend Easter with my Family and I.  I am so happy that my friends are able to come out here and see me when I live in another state, they have kids, and no income etc. I am so happy and lucky to have such supportive friends even though it took me until this all to realize they werent just being my friend to be nice.

I have a lot to look forward to and I am going to start by planning my vacation, doing better at work, doing sight seeing, have game nights at my place, try and find social groups. Here is to 2011 and kicking Cancer in the A$*!!!

Thank you all so much for continuing to read my blog (and spelling errors!), the support you have shown me and the prayers you have been sending for me, have been incredible and I am so lucky to have you in my life. God bless you!!! Will write again soon, PROMISE!

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