Holding My Breath

There is more I want to share about my trip to Disney but right now I’m holding my breath.

Today I’ll find out two things:

1. If it’s my absolute final day at work, and…

2. The results of my CT scan and blood work…is the cancer situation worse, same, or O.K.?

So while I’m turning blue, passing out and hoping the building I work in doesn’t collapse due to blasting 200 feet away because the first two things are stressful enough, I’ll be planning my weekend of unpacking and wallpapering. God, knows there just isn’t enough of this stuff on bedroom walls.

Really, do I really get that stressed out? Nah, I just like holding my breath so see if I can match the color of that wall paper because who would I be if I clashed with the color of a room?

I’m not sure what it takes to really stress me out any more. Financial issues have always been a primary source of stress in my life but although I’m not financially secure they no longer control my life.

Do you have your limits or do are you letting the stress pile up until you explode? Or is the thought of that wall paper making you want to explode?

Sleep

I’m mentally exhausted and physically ill.  All I want to do is crawl into bed and sleep…so that’s what I’m going to do…

Short or Long

So, I’m preparing for chemotherapy and shopping for wigs. I have a consultation on Saturday morning at a salon that specializes in helping cancer patients find the right kind of wig but I’m torn. Do I stick with a short sassy style or do I go with long hair for once in my life?

What do you think?

Short?

Or long?

There are a lot of styles to choose from at Wigs.com. Tell me what you think!

The Farse of Ovarian Cancer

It’s time for me to stop stressing out over this trip to Disney and over money. After all, didn’t I just post about living now and being at peace? I want both of those things back pronto. Let me just say that in yesterday’s post I wasn’t stating that anyone was angry, I was just stating that if I stepped on anyone’s proverbial toes then I was sorry, truly sorry.

Now I’d like to talk about my doctor’s appointment with the medical oncologist on Tuesday. I don’t want to through a bunch of medical crap at you so I’ll explain in the most basic terms I can because this is really fucked up.

Last year, February 2007, I had a biopsy done of the mass on my abdomen and the type of cells found weren’t the kind typically found with ovarian cancer or recurrent ovarian cancer but the report stated that “it couldn’t be ruled out.” So the doctors slapped the diagnosis “RECURRENT OVARIAN CANCER” on my forehead and insisted that’s what I had.

My family doctor and gynecologist/cousin were two voices of reason who said, “hmm, that doesn’t make sense…” However not being oncologists they told me that I should go to a gynecology oncologist and at no time did any gynecology oncologist tell me that it wasn’t recurrent ovarian cancer.

When I had surgery at…gasp…Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia…gasp…yes, the place that tried to kill me…they never followed up with a letter, a phone call, nothing. They never suggest chemotherapy, never told me if I actually had recurrent ovarian cancer and basically dropped the ball. DROPPED. THE. BALL.

So, for the past year I’ve been of the thought that I had recurrent ovarian cancer and didn’t need chemotherapy. I’ve thought that every thing is fine because a world renowned cancer center would have contacted me after their board of certified oncologists reviewed my case, right?

Not so much.

Even better is that when I was first diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2004 the tumor I had was a borderline low malignant potential tumor. That’s a tumor that has the potential to become cancer and in my case was cancer however it took three hospitals to make the diagnosis. I wonder today if any of them had it right because all three opinions were different.

Can you say, “fucked up”?

Better yet? Borderline low malignant potential tumors…rarely ever come back and when they do it’s not in the form of cancer that I had last year NOR is it as aggressive as the kind of cancer I have now.

I knew all of this information before I met with the oncologist on Tuesday and then he confirmed every thing I knew from the research I did. It was a beautiful thing, yet extremely tragic.

The medical oncologist has a theory that I may not have recurrent ovarian cancer at all but something completely different…except, he isn’t sure what it is. It could be colon cancer, gastrointestinal cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer…some kind of aggressive cancer that is spreading to other organs. The remaining questions are: where else is this cancer and just how bad is it?

Right now we have no idea what kind of cancer we are dealing with and won’t know until I have a full body CT scan and a fuckton of blood work. I’ll have to start chemotherapy and after three rounds I’ll have another full body CT scan and another fuckton of blood work to see if there are any changes. Hopefully that will help diagnose what kind of cancer I have to better treat it.

The doctor thinks that I’ve actually had this cancer much longer than any of us think especially based on the size of the tumor found on my abdomen last year which was 4 inches. This is why he wants to start chemotherapy immediately.

When I explained how important it was to take my children to Disney World he completely understood. He said, “Take your babies now while you still can but do it quickly because we need to take care of you fast!”

I have a full body CT Scan scheduled for next Friday. Depending on those results I may have to go through a round of chemotherapy before I go Disney World.

Of course we made our plans for the trip and then found out that our medical coverage changed as of January 1, 2008. We are responsible for the first $3,000 of coverage each year before our insurance pays 100%…we pay 10%, they pay 90%. That $150 co-pay I thought I had for my biopsy last week? OUCH, HURT ME…I got a bill for $294.35.

Live and learn…but fuck it. I’m taking my children to Disney World.

The hospital will have to get in line, take $10 a month until I can pay it off. I’m tired of paying every bill on time, living on nothing while every other asshole went out there and bought a house they couldn’t afford. I live in a tiny little house with three people. That’s just a rant for another time…

A Few Things…

If you can dream it, you can do it. ~Walt Disney

First of all, I’d like to thank everyone who commented yesterday. Reading all of your comments left me so emotional that I couldn’t respond. I was really touched by what each and every one of you had to say.

Thank you for sharing lessons and ideas. I think one of the things I’m going to do is take a lot of the lessons and make a scrap book with them. I’m not terribly crafty however I know I can come up with something wonderful.

When the time is right I will make some videos for the girls however in the meantime it’s time to use the video camera I purchased a few years ago. It’s hardly ever been used. I want them to have as many memories on video as possible. Of course you realize this may subject you to some more videos much like Look Ma, I Got A Tiara but in much better quality.

Now I must clear up any confusion there might have been over an off-handed comment I made on Sunday in my Disney Update post. At the end of the post I made mention about doing my taxes and the hope that I wouldn’t have to use your donation money to pay for anything.

Please let me clarify…I procrastinated in preparing my federal taxes this year and every year I’m always afraid I’ll owe money. Every year I go through this and every year we get a refund no matter how small it may be. Every year the refund is just enough to cover our real estate tax bill and we get it just in time to pay that bill. So, while other people are able to use that money for other things, my husband and I use our federal tax refund to pay our real estate taxes. We have done this every year for the past 11 years.

In fact the Economic Stimulus check we will receive along with lots of other Americans will go towards the first real estate tax bill we received last month. We will pay the late penalty and then pay the tax. I wonder how many other people will use that check for bills as well.

The last thing I want to talk about was my doctor’s appointment with the medical oncologist yesterday. Actually, I’ll save that for tomorrow’s post because that will take a post in itself to explain the details. Plus, I haven’t fully wrapped my mind around it…it’s that mind blowing.

Basically, I need to get my ass in gear and start treatment as soon as possible which means my family has to go to Disney yesterday. My husband and I are extremely grateful for all you have done to make it possible for us to take our daughters on that trip, a trip we’ve been dreaming for over three years.

We understand that some people were getting together to donate flyer miles and other things but I have an aggressive cancer that needs treatment as soon as possible.

At risk of making some people angry my husband and I decided to do what’s best for our family, our daughters and for my health and we had to plan our trip to Disney accordingly. We were able to plan the trip exactly how we envisioned it at a very reasonable price.

See, we wanted to give our two daughters the entire Disney experience where they could stay at a Disney resort, you know where everything is Disney. That’s part of the magic. We wanted to give them a week away from the harsh reality of what they’ve been through for the past four years, after all they are ages eight and 11.

So, I hope that people will understand the decision that Dude and I had to make. I also hope they will understand what we wanted our daughters to have in taking them to Disney.

If, God forbid, this is the last vacation our family gets to take together then I want it to be the most memorable vacation ever…