Beginning of the journey

7/6/10

Hi all. Thanks for being interested in my blog. I thought this would be a good way to keep everyone up-to-date and to journal my thoughts.

So... to provide some background information, my cancer journey all started at the beginning of May (2010) when I began feeling a little pain in my lower right abdomen. It was just a small pain and initially it was only when I took a deep breath, but gradually it became more constant. On May 13th I stayed home from work because my mom was having gall bladder surgery that day. By the way, Mom is my hero. She bounced back from her surgery like it was an ingrown toenail or something. Seriously. She was taking awesome care of me after my surgery and it was only a week after hers. Superwoman.

Anyway, so I was at home on the morning of the 13th making vegetable soup because I knew Mom was coming home from her surgery the same day and I wanted to take soup to her house. So the pain became worse while I was on my feet that morning and felt like a burning sensation toward my back. When I was sitting in the waiting room at the hospital later that morning I mentioned this pain to my sister and nieces. Kris is a nurse, Erin just graduated from nursing school, and Emily is currently in nursing school at Purdue, so of course they all encouraged (actually pushed) me to get it checked out – which turned out to be a really good thing. At that point I thought the worst case scenario was that my appendix was infected and would have to be removed. I was kinda panicked ‘cause I was scheduled to fly out to Colorado the next morning for Lindsey’s graduation (I’m gonna blog about that in a couple days ‘cause I’m SO proud of her!).

Well, to cut to the chase…I had a very large mass in my right kidney, was told it was cancer, and that I’d have to have my kidney removed. I was still able to go to CO as scheduled (YAY) and had my surgery the following week, on My 20th.

I spent the next 4 weeks at home recovering from surgery, which was NOT fun, let me tell you. Whew! Having never had surgery before, I had no idea how painful it could be and was very unrealistic about what I would be able to do once I got home…which I paid the price for in the form of more pain.

I have to give a HUGE shout-out here to all my family and friends who took SUCH good care of me and did so much work on my house and yard and everything. Lindsey stayed with me for 2 weeks before she had to go back to CO for work. She took care of me AND painted my entire dining room, kitchen and entry way at the same time. Mom helped her with that as well as keeping us fed and helping me with about everything needing done around my house. Matt, Tyler, and Larry have made sure my yard stayed manicured.  My sisters, Kris and Sara keep close tabs on me and make sure I'm feeling okay and that I don't need anything.  My 'sistas' are keeping the prayers going up for me.  Kim also keeps close tabs on me and she and Bob spent a whole day at my house helping cross items off my list - including unclogging my bathroom sink drain!  Yeah, Kim did that...she's another on of my heroes.  I also have to thank my bosses at work, who are being SO understanding and flexible and caring...that has been such a relief.  I can't name everyone here but it doesn't mean I don't appreciate you.  Thank you to everyone who has been helpful and caring - including those who sent cards and are including me in their prayers.

After 4 1/2 weeks I went back to work - although that wasn't very steady due to doctor appointments.  Then today I started my chemo treatments.  I'm staying at St. Vincent's in Indy this week for my first "session", but the doctor said I should be able to complete my other treatments in Kokomo at St. Joe...which I'm EXTREMEMLY excited about. :)