An Introduction of Sorts

This is the view I had from my window in the hospital this afternoon.  I've been here since Tuesday night.  My husband and I went to the emergency room, waited for 2 1/2 hours (people watched of course) got called back and saw doctor after doctor and nurses after nurses...I was poked and prodded.  I swear they took a gallon of my blood!

But wait, let's start from the beginning.  In a nutshell because there is a lot to tell.  Some of you know what is going on while others will have heard of this for the first time.  

The beginning started when my second born, E, was 7 months old.  I went to my primary care physician, Dr. Ideker, to have her tell me why my right foot hurt.  Turns out it was plantar fasciitis (a pulled ligament).  Then I had her check out my carpal tunnel.  Yup - it was confirmed that I had it in both wrists.  Then, while I was there I thought she could take a look at the lump in my neck.  I really didn't think it was a big deal.  I wasn't even going to have her look at it but why the heck not. As it turns out, it was a pretty big deal.  After doing a series of tests, a needle aspiration biopsy (worse thing ever), and a bunch of scans I was told by a doctor that I had Papillary Thyroid Cancer.  

Gulp.

I was 29 years young.  During the following years, I have had 3 papillary thyroid related surgeries.  The first surgery involved having my entire thyroid removed and the tumor that was found there.  I also had a round of radiation.  After all that, they put me on synthroid - a pill that is the exact replica of the missing thyroid hormone.  I have been taking that pill now for 7 years and will be for the rest of my life.  I have too.  I don't have a thyroid!  

The 2nd and 3rd surgeries were to remove the lymph nodes in my neck that were housing the papillary thyroid cancer.  Darn you, you cancer cooties!  I also had another round of radiation after my 3rd surgery.  Not fun.

So, I have had stage 1 papillary thyroid cancer for 7 years now.  

On to other news.  The one related to me enjoying the view from my window while typing this blog post on the hospital bed.  

April of this year, I again went to Dr. Ideker because I had a wicked infection on the back of my ankle.  I could barely walk.  It was grotesquely huge.  Shudder.  And again, since I was there, I asked her to remove the mole on the front of my left shin because shaving around it was a pain the in the bum.  

Well, she took it out, sent it to pathology and received the news two days later that I had melanoma.  What?!?!?  I had her repeat that again just to make sure I heard her right.  And, unfortunately, I did hear her right.  

So, since May 22nd, I have had 3 surgeries regarding my melanoma cancer.  The first one involved taking a huge chunk of skin off where the cootie mole was.  They cut all the way down to the muscle.  They took a skin graft from my left thigh to put in my gaping hole.  They also removed one lymph node from my left groin.That lymph node came back positive.  I am now at a Stage 3A in my cancer.

Double Gulp

Before my 2nd surgery, I had a series of scans to go through.  We all wanted to make sure that it didn't spread to any organs.  I had a PET scan and a CT scan.  Everything came back negative (meaning no cancer was found anywhere else in my body - thank goodness!)

My 2nd surgery then was to remove as many lymph nodes from my left groin as they could.  Since that is where we found the one infected lymph node, they wanted to make sure there wasn't any cancer in the other lymph nodes surrounding it.  I also had a Jackson Pratt drain stitched into my leg.  Since my doctor (Dr. Suwan) removed a major lymphatic system from my leg, the fluid had to figure out where to go from there.  Just in the interim, it was being drained into the JP (Jackson Pratt).  They biopsied all the lymph nodes and it all come back negative!  No gulping there.  It was a total Mary Poppins and Bert the chimney sweeper jump up and click my heels together feeling.  It was AWESOME.

But what about my 3rd surgery?  Well, the skin surrounding the draining tube that is stitched in my thigh became super infected.  We came straight to the emergency room Tuesday night (thank you Roxane and Deidre and Jason for watching our kids) and I am still here.  The infection turned out to be a staph infection.  I had surgery yesterday so they could flush out all the infected cooties out of my leg.  I now have a new JP (curse you JP) and am constantly being pumped with antibiotics through an IV.  I will be here until Sunday. 

Starting in August, I will be getting a series of interferon treatments, Monday - Friday for 4 weeks at the Cancer Care Center in Regions Hospital.  This treatment is meant to destroy all those cancer cooties the scans didn't pick up.  It helps so the melanoma doesn't come back in the future as well.

So, there it is - in a nutshell.  I've been thinking about writing a cancer blog for a while.  I'm hoping that through writing this down and sharing it to all of you will be therapeutic for me and perhaps others who are going through something similar.  

I know a lot of you will have questions.  Or maybe are just plain confused.  I hope to write a little more of each of those scenes of my life in more detail in the future.  For now, this will have to suffice.  

And lastly - this is what gives me hope:

E, T, K, and I

And this guy for sure:

Gorgeous me and Hottie husband Jeremy

Yup - it's all good.  Scary but good.