The days leading up until and...

SO, I suppose I should get to the point of all this. The reason for this blog in the first place. I had been sick. I woke up one day with a mysterious case of laryngitis. Yeah, the kids hadn't been sick, so wtf? Was it the WalMart shopping cart? Who knows... so I am just sick with this, but start to get better after a few days while all along the crap settles down in my throat... you know, in that cruddy place where it sits and dwells for a while like it's on vacation. Like those stupid mucinex commercials with the mucus men. Finally after a few weeks I go to the doc and they tell me it's walking pneumonia, give me a z-pack and send me packing. After that I didn't get better, I go back and they give me a different antibiotic. I go off to Missouri on vacation feeling like the dead... fever, night sweats (classic symptom I didn't know at the time... *wink*), everyone's like, "Damn, you look like crap...take better care of yourself, go home and rest"....yeah.... Here I am BACK at the doc AGAIN and now they're telling me it could be tuberculosis, go spit in this cup and take multiple samples, and I am just thinking is this insane? Am I in the twilight zone? And who the HECK have I been in contact with because, dang now I have to make a list and tell all of these folks to go get themselves checked out and how freakin' bad is that? (Sure would have been better to have to tell them I have TB, huh? Well...) I go ahead with the x-ray and they come back in and ask me quite frankly if I had been out of the country, "Uh, Ms. Miller, uh, have you been out of the country recently? Have you been to Africa?" Really? Are you people serious? Um, ok... I give my sputum sample and I walk out with a cd in hand and no specialist appt and I am thinking this is all really fucked up and its late in the day and I need to eat and it's hot as hell and I get into my car and I close the door and I start screaming. And really at that point it was all crazy... and I call home to say I am coming home and it will be hamburgers and what do I want on mine and to hurry, but be careful. And I get there and hellos all around and here's the picture of my frickin' chest on the huge laptop screen and we all just stare at the horror that we see and realize, but cannot say because how could we possibly know and there are questions from little boys and explanations and washed dishes and bedtime and no, I was not listening to my body as, if I had been, the sense of foreboding might have overtaken me. I can't get a specialist appt because I have no insurance or it will take 3 weeks. I am talking to my sister on Sat morning and I am telling her all of the crap I have been doing and coughing myself half to death because my body is trying to rid itself of this giant alien x-ray picture and I decide right then and there that I am going to the flippin' hospital because how can I possibly wait 3 weeks for a pulmonologist to check me out and so I declare that I am going to the hospital. I tell my husband, call my mother and she and I head out to cute little Caldwell where I am informed that there is no pulmonologist on site and to take myself to Fry (honey!). Right..... we go and my mother cleverly instructs me to wear my face mask (gotta love TB, right?) and we are thru intake and in a room within 20 minutes. (A reverse air flow room so I don't spread my TB, har har) I give over my doc records and cd x-ray pic to a nice ER doc in a better mask than mine and explain my symptoms for the last 3 months. He returns as my mother and I are discussing our observations of the Fry ER and talking around, but somehow minutely about what is actually happening and suggests a CAT scan to better see what is happening. Of course....this is normal.  ER doc returns again with forgotten mask and wonderfully (he really was great about it...) tells me that I have a tumor and he believes it is cancer and I will need to be admitted for more testing. I just blink and say, "OK, so what do we have to do?" Blindsided....wow... but then I don't even register it and I am marching off to a room doing hat i need to do to diagnose it.... Wow... what a crazy day, huh?

Ah, Mother's Day. What can I say? I was a major slacker and did nada of importance for my Ma, though she gets herself whatever she wants anyway and cannot be pleased.
I do really enjoy the handmade cards and wild flowers from the kiddos. Then I basically had to listen to them fight and scream all day. Sigh... Bath? No. Massage? No. Breakfast in bed? No. Offers of, "Honey, let me get that for you" or "What can I get you, love?" Nope. Stupid nonsense Hallmark garbage. Treat your Mom like gold all the time. Yup.

The first of many, I hope

Because of the prodding, I mean encouragement, of friends and family, I am now typing these words. Words that I hope will help me heal. Cell Blog C will hopefully be a portal to a better place for me and, if I can bring hope and encouragement to others along the way, that would be super.
The skinny- I was diagnosed with cancer in June of 2011. I am now undergoing a second round of chemo and am, quite frankly, sick of it all. Organizing my thoughts like a book will probably not happen as there are too many to reign in, but for today, this is my start.