~From fear to calm, from pain to love~
First off, this blog post involves writing that I worked on during the past month, spanning from October and on into November. So really, more than a month's time. Almost each chapter is a new entry in this journey of fear, anxiety, worry, pain, and eventually, discoveries of loving friendships. It has been quite a month, so sit down, relax, and take a little ride thru my latest travels along life's path. It still amazes me to re-read it. I hope you enjoy! o:')
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~One year of "All-Clear"!! Yay!!!
"Anniversary" blood test results "not normal"
...CRAP!!!~
....Ok, no one would want to play this game, trust me, and I kno many who understand and are going thru the very same fears as I am. I am far into the fear, the anxiety, and I have many reasons to be. First off, I just celebrated my first year of "all-clear" this past Oct 30th. So, yay!!.
Now, as my doc set me up for an appointment with the vampire (blood test), I figured, things will prolly be a lil off, since I not been feeling as well as I know I should. Now, I will explain. I have to watch my sugar intake, I tend to drop sometimes and have to either eat a candy or take a glucose tablet. In the last month alone, I had to go as far as requiring the glucagon shot. I not had to need that for many months now. So I kno, there is something a lil off. I been a lil tired lately, so, on one visit, they did a test of my heart, I had to go on two machines so far, one is that EKG, other I really cant remember the name. My heart is around 80% efficiency, which is a lil better than it was before, but as some know, hard treatments can screw things up in the fight against the cancer in you. I had to stop hard treatments because of this, even tho they wanted to keep going. I chose to stop. I still made it tho, I still reached an all-clear. But was told the risk for relapse was that much more possible.
Now from all I been told and all I have read, everywhere, the cases similar to mine has a high chance of relapse within the first year. Survival rate alone was extremely low as it was, and I got that far, but I will see on the "tenth" year of survival for a full idea on that fact still, lol (yes, there are complications that can continue problems after an all-clear is given after fighting certain cancers, like mine, that can make surviving hard to reach ten years sometimes, so time will tell, but when I do reach that tenth year, I will know, I am finally, in the clear!). So, I will say to you, I truly question, how many chances does one have at winning the lucky card of survival? I had many in my life as it is, how long will this streak last? I just got to this point of regaining health where I feel I can get better and I feel I do in fact have a chance of living a normal life one day.
So now, I have this blood test, and a few days after, my friend gets a call, ...that I have an appointment with the radiology. The fact the date was not far at all from that call, told me something was bad.
The scan takes a while, as it is the PET/CT scan, and I am nervous beyond words to say the least. I am told, as always, I must wait for results, and they will call if anything is found. This just sounds like a truly bad suspense movie, I just want to get up and walk right out of this theater and not ever go back to this movie! I just can't tho, I am the damn main character! CRAP!!! *yells as writer and directer* "CUT!!!!!!!"
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~The wait, the call, the wait, the suspense, the non-stop thoughts and fear.... Halp!!!~
I get home, after being turned into the human compass, and I swear if I float in a pool, I will point north. Those scans are scary when u watch those insane videos on youtube about how strong those electro-magnets are on those scan machines. Soo, I wait. Day one, nothing. I cant sleep. Day two, My friend gets a call. I was not with her when she got that call, but how she came to me when she got home, told me something was definitely wrong. She tried to not make me feel its bad, by the way they told her they just "want to be sure, but they..." ya, that's where my heart dropped, at the "but". There is always a "but" somewhere in bad comings of bad news. It is just like how they say about the word "assume" They teach you that little phrase to remember how to spell it and a lesson of it's use at the same time.... "If you assume, it only makes an ASS out of U and ME". It is an example for my phrase of the word "but" in any news anywhere. "Assoon assyou see the word 'but' come around, something is about to STINK!" Mebbe I hung around my brother too much , but that's the way the "gas flows". Butt seriously ppl, hide the beans from my bro, lol. He knows my humor, and he is laughing beside me as I type this actually. :)
Soo, Cindy continues saying, they want to be sure, but they suspect an abnormality. I had to go in for a visit. October was not fun in many ways with docs, let me tell you. My heart I am pretty sure, averaged over 100BPM on average at full relax. I am sooo not exaggerating too. The chest pains I had off and on thru this fiasco told me I was pushing it hard on the fear factor. So the wait to see the doc began. The wait to see the doc to hear details begins. The wait, , again.....
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~Why when they say "there's nothing serious, 'but', we must do a biopsy", I freeze up and almost panic?~
The doc turns on the monitor and opens up files, and soon I see a myself in ways I usually don't see, my innards. He zooms into my abdomen, shows where I my last operation was, from last February, removing the cyst with ovary and tube. This time, a 3cm cyst was on the outer wall of my uterus. It looked "massy", and different from the other two cysts ( both less than 1cm and barely noticeable) that were "normal" (LOL), but those were not flagged for concern. Those two were not in the same place, but up by the area of my liver where they did a few operations in. Those were described as normal fluid type cysts, most common in areas of scar tissue. ..."O---K.."
They go to the one they want to discuss about doing a biopsy on in the scan shot on the screen and discuss more on it, and asked how I felt, questions of my monthly times (erratic to non existent still), if I had probs with pain, and bloated feelings. I seriously had none of that, out of the mess I already experience. I wrote down all my questions for the doc to read, all I was curious about, and he answered all but one. Will I lose another ovary? Will I need to worry of a relapse? Will this be something that will push me back on my progress to regain my health, dealing with yet some more trauma to my system that my health will have to take another year to regain?
The doc couldn't answer that last question. I have what the doc calls, low function liver, I must still take nutritional supplements to aid in my health regain, and basically, to sustain as normal life as possible without more problems, like jaundice, as I did have before. The liver is very resilient, but the numbers are still not where they shud be for me, so is why I am still on the prednisone, even at low dose, but I am also dealing with other probs left over from the initial messes of the journey thru hell. I have not given up, I will not give up, so, good days will be reached no matter what.
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~The wait continues, and now for the biopsy surgery in two weeks!!!! ...Oh how I wish I cud be healthy and normal! :( ~
Ok, so, I try to busy myself in Rift, a game much like World of Warcraft, and I have been playing this game for over a month at this point. I had mentioned of meeting new friends there. The game can be a place of volatile occurrences, and so goes with everything on the side of real life coupled with a MMO game. So, things can be an "up and down" there as anywhere else, and stress can in fact do u bad, no matter how much u try to not allow it's effect. I may not make sense, but Im sure, I know what I mean. Anyhoo, the game gets to that point I don't see the fun as before, and I just watch netflix to relax, but I just tend to think too much with movies and the anxiety starts up again. I need to find better shows to watch, lol. Mebbe I just need someone to simply listen to me when I need to talk about whats eating at me inside at times (figuratively speaking).
Well, time gets close, and the anxiety is beyond what I figured on. I just need to relax but I cant. I try, but I cant. Many ups and downs during this time and the stress level is thru the roof. Fear and hope, heartaches and anxiety, worry and everything else added in that all totals out where I am in life, and the "bad" , simply just comes to a head at this point. I just can not do this anymore. It is truly wearing me down, and I must know things will be ok. That I can get my life back on track, but this operation, I kno will only push me back a far way that will only prolong my inability to do what I want for my life, and delay my efforts even more.
How can someone my age find someone to share my life with, when my life is so unfair to anyone who remotely cares for me already? How can I want to find love, when being loved by someone is truly being selfish on my part, while my health problems are a true source of fear and worry for them. ....So, is wanting to be loved by a significant someone only for my own satisfaction of being loved? It is just not fair for both sides of the subject. I want to have a life, I want to get out, earn a paycheck, go places, see friends, be able to feel comfy with people seeing me, and I want to fix my skin, my face , the scars, the mess I see. I want to afford to pay my bills, to buy a home, to go on vacations. I want to get married, to truly extend my heart to the one who can really accept it and see the full value of the love within me. I am trapped here. This illness crap is my own prison. And I feel at this point, my life sentence, is life without love, intimacy, , and after more surgery, life, without parole.
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~Friends sure do help tons, and those u love, even if just around you, can ease the soul's misery.~
I do have amazing friends, and I can not ever thank them all enough. Even if my journey is so confusing to them, even if my life is just too crazy, they find ways to help calm me, and ease away the fears. I had great support along the way, especially in the last couple days before the day of surgery, I truly had a torrent of support, and time with people who really do care. I felt myself falling near the end of this recent hell in my mind, but sometimes you are amazed by those who prove they do truly care and love you enough to reach far enough to bring you back from the hole u felt you were in too far deep to be found. I can not put into words of the things friends have done for me, and I will always be searching for ways to express how I feel.
So. with so much good on my mind these past couple days, I felt much better going in the hospital on this day I was fearing so much, for so long, to have a cyst removed for biopsy, to find out if it is a bad kind or whatever. I still was terrified, I was still fearing bad news, but I am so glad it is now over. I was told I had nothing to worry about by the surgeon who saw me in recovery. The nurses were very nice too. Now the wait for results begins.
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~The final score is in! Ty for playing "fear factor" ...a game here you never know what to expect, good, or bad, or both! But the final result , is great!~
It was nothing but a cyst, benign, and only 28mm (just under 3 cm). It's location was in an area of concern years ago during my cancer journey, as during this time i had small tumors in places as they called them, along with several cysts. Years later and crazy treatments and insanity later, they all but gone and only cysts remain here and there. So, this one that looked irregular, was nothing more than that, just a cyst. I am so very relieved and happy!
I want to have a good ending to the painful path I have traveled on during this time in the fight for my life, the last 5 years. I have had nice times along the way, but knew it could only be for so long, but this time, it truly feels good, and I feel better times are in my future for sure. For now, I must get going, so, I bid you all a good night or day, and I thank you for reading my latest chapter of my journey.
*big hugs to all*
~Jennifer Wolf o:)
