June 11, 2008

I haven't made a new entry since May 20th. I'd like to say it's because I've been so busy, doing so many great things, but I can't. It's mostly because I've been sleeping. It's not that I haven't been doing anything fun or exciting, because I have, I have to, I'd go crazy! It's a combination of fatigue, boredom, and depression that has led to all the sleeping, but it gets tricky knowing when I'm feeling what? They all kinda feel they same, and fatigue is to be expected, and then I don't have the energy to do anything and I get bored, but it's the last one I worry about. When does it become depression, when does it all become depression? I decided I didn't want to find out, and asked my doctor for antidepressants.

It's interesting that this is the day I chose to write. It wasn't consciously done, but today is the two year anniversary of the day everything in my life changed. It's not the day of my diagnosis, that would follow, and actually holds less significance than this day. I realize many that are reading this might be coming into the story where my blog picks up, and have no background info. Let me give you a little of what you missed. Starting with what I can remember of the days leading up to June 11th, as if I could forget.

After months of mysterious pains, doctor's visits, misdiagnoses, and essentially being dismissed with a clean bill of health, I took a job up in Steamboat Springs, bout 4 hours from Denver, up in the mountains. I was about 3 days into this job, when I started getting shooting tingling pain down my legs. I saw a local doctor, who put in for authorization for an MRI from my insurance (a request that had been turned done a few months earlier) it was approved, and I had an appointment at the local hospital for an 8am MRI. The morning of my appointment I woke up, and stepped out of bed. My legs were worse. Not because of pain, but because I could barely feel them. Each step I took I had to focus on, look where I was planting my foot, find my balance, then shift my weight. It was like trying to walk with rubber bands connecting my hips to my feet. I made it to the bathroom, and into the the shower... and then down I went. Use of legs gone. I could still move them a little, wiggle my toes, feel them in a numb and tingly sort of way, but they were done supporting my weight. I crawled out of the shower and back to my room. I pulled a pair of jeans on to my near lifeless limbs, then crawled to the door of my production manager's room to get help. We went to the ER of the hospital where I had my appointment, since the situation had been upgraded to emergency. The ER doctor sent me to my MRI, and then I came back to the quite ER to wait. It had snowed the night before. It was June, and had been in the 70's the day before, but it was a complete winter wonderland when I woke up that morning. Everything completely still, and quite. It was the same in the emergency room of this little hospital. Finally the doctor returned, he looked me over with a furrowed brow. "Have you taken a fall lately? Or had any kind of accident?" he asked. I told him no, that I had fallen snow boarding, but that was weeks ago, and I got right up from that. "Well, I got the results of the MRI..." STOP. It was at this moment in his sentence that I panicked, not because I thought he was going to tell me there was something wrong with me, but because I thought he was going to tell me what so many doctors over the past few months had told me, that there was NOTHING wrong with me. I thought, please don't tell me there's nothing wrong with me! I can't feel my legs, how am I supposed to walk out of here if they send me away, I can't walk! "...you have a broken bone in your back." Oh thank god! There's something wrong with me! Medical mystery solved! A broken bone! Yeah, it's in my back, and I still have walking to worry about, but at least now I know what's been wrong with me this whole time! What a relief! "But..." Wait there's a 'but'? "If you didn't have an injury or accident that caused this, it could be a pathological fracture... disease caused." Ok, now panic.

The C-word was never used that day. But I know I thought it. I tried to push it out of my mind, but regardless, there was something living inside me that was eating my spine, I didn't need to hear the word cancer to know this was bad, this was really really bad.

What followed was a Lear jet ride back to Denver for a 9 hour spinal fusion surgery, and the subsequent cancer diagnosis from the biopsies of the damaged spinal tissue taken during the surgery. And then a PET scan to tell me it was breast cancer.

I went to the hospital on June ll, 2008. Little did I know that due the amount of rehabilitation I would need to teach my legs to work again, as well as a slurry of nosocomial infections, I wouldn't be leaving until August 9th. I left the hospital barely able to walk with a walker, and still with a picc line, feeding me IV nutrition, and antibiotics. There were many times in the hospital, and in the months to follow where I had the thought that I wasn't long for this world.

There is a lot that has happened over the last two years, and though my current situation isn't great, I'm still here, I can walk, I can do better than walk, I can dance, ride my horse, I can only slightly jog, but honestly, who really wants to do that anyway?? I feel pretty good.(Recent request for happy pills aside) :)