Monday October 3rd we visit Dr Garg (the oncologist), she diagnoses me with Stage IBI Cervical Cancer (maybe stage II). She mentioned stage II is inoperable, but scheduled the surgery for Friday October 7th anyway (Yes, Jan's Birthday).
Thankfully she operates and does a radical hysterectomy, and sends 15 lymph nodes for testing. In the meantime, after 24 hours they send me home with a
handful of pain pills. Well, that was not fun. Up all night in pain and sleeping all day from being up all night. I could barely get out of bed.
The boys where so scared, Jeremy would cry for hours until he fell a sleep and Jan was so worried that he went to talk to the school counselor. They asked a lot of questions and we answered slowly and to the best of our ability.
On the 17th we went for surgery results with the oncologist and she has bad news we are still not out of danger, because 1 lymph node came back with cancer. That is when our heart sank and we said we need help, we called JC's mom and she was up here from Miami that same night. My goodness, having her here put a sense of relief on the entire family.
Last Monday we went to talk to the radiologist and she was amazing, she explained everything in detail and re-assured us that this was curable.
I start radiation and chemo the first week of November, we shall see how that goes.
In the meantime, before I have to start working, it is important for me to recover from surgery, so I sleep away the days.
Today we celebrated nona's 71 Birthday, although we did not end up doing much we had cake and gave her lots of love and sang lots of songs to her! It was an awesome day!
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Living Hopefull with Bad News!
Hi everyone,
As most of you know by now our family was hit with the very scary news that I have cervical cancer. OF COURSE YOU ALWAYS THINK "THIS IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN TO ME"! but it did and now we just have to deal with it.
Due to the overwhelming amount of support I decided to start a blog, mainly because I have good and bad days and simply don't have enough energy to manage all the positive responses. Also, I try to sleep as much as I can so I can heal fast and build my energy for what is coming and to try to be my normal self while the boys are home. So, please do not take offense if my two little angels Lucila and Carol stop you from talking to me or see me. They know first hand
my struggles.
Although I started this blog to inform everyone of our situation, I also started it because I like to write and this might help relieve some of the stress and all the lingering thoughts that run in my head while I stare at the ceiling wondering what is going to come ahead.
Here we GO! Most people wanna know how we discovered the news. Well, JC and I started an exercise routine to be healthier, shortly after we started JC was feeling invigorated, but for some reason I started feeling drained. Something not unfamiliar to me, since I have always been very busy, most of you know that I have worked, gone to school and been a mom and wife who did everything herself. A self proclaimed "Super Woman" ;0), more like a recipe for disaster, but yeah we will tackle that at a later time. In any case, I was feeling extremely tired and stressed again nothing abnormal for me, but starting to concern me enough to visit the Dr. She mentioned, well I do not think anything is wrong with you, but we will take a blood test and I think you have sleep apnea because you are over weight and you are probably not getting enough sleep! I knew she was full of it, when I got to the office next morning and Kurt my office mate had just been tested for the same thing and he is the total opposite from me, tall, young and slim (you're welcome Kurt).
I said, eh, I will skip that recommendation, 'cause obviously this is not a real
solution to my problem.
A couple of weeks later I come back to the Dr. because I am extremely stressed and feeling overwhelmed and after that time of the month it just kept coming. I did not know what was wrong, because I had no symptoms, no pain,
just stress, lots of stress... so I figured eh, I just turned 40 and have a lot of stress, maybe is nerves or something hormonal. So she sends me to get a sonogram and another blood test. Nothing! Everything comes back normal.
She actually starts looking at me as if I am a Hypochondriac! and by now the second month of going through the same cycle, she says perhaps you need to see a Gyno, so she mails me a list of her recommendations.
After my disappointment with this Dr. I said forget it, I am going to take ownership and do this on my own, so, as I usually do all my research I Googled
a list a of GYNO's in Vienna, VA and truly chose the one with the Scandinavian name ;0)
Well, I went in on a Monday, the Dr took a 5 minute look and said immediately this is serious, he had a pale look and simply told me, I am about to retire and this is going to require more than I can dedicate and commit to you. So he asked me to immediately go across the street to a different Gyno. Oh yeah I forgot to mention that JC had taken the day off because that was Jeremy's 6th Birthday and we where planning on taking cupcakes for Jeremy to his school!
So, JC went with me! As we go to the new Dr., he is on call and has to leave to the Hospital, but takes time to take a quick look! and tells me we are operating in 2 days and sends me for a series of pre-op tests. Scary but still not fully understanding the gravity of it.
Wednesday I go for surgery and they remove a polyp and send it for biopsy, the hospital staff tells me, we will be give results in a couple of weeks. Within 24 hours Dr Garcia is calling me with the results! He tells me: "Nita, I have the results of your biopsy and I am sorry to tell you the news are not good and you have Cancer in your cervix!
Never, in a million years as kids say, would I have thought I would hear those words. For some reason JC had taken then day off to be there for me after surgery, I remember grabbing his fore arm and I looked in in his eyes and I just mouthed "Cancer". He looked at me as if confused and said "WHO, YOU?"
and cried out the most painful cry I have every heard. Not knowing what else to say, I said thank you Dr. and he told me he had an oncologist set up for me to see and some extra test to do to prepare before my appointment.
In shock, we call Betsy to come over and we rush the kids out of the house, we call Linda (our neighbor) and told her, we need to send you our kids, we just got bad news. The did not wanna go and we had to literally force them out of the house. We felt horrible, Jeremy had taken a bath and his wet hair was dripping as they where running towards the neighbors house. As they leave we cry and share our thoughts with our friends and neighbors as we try to calm our selves down with the scary news!
As most of you know by now our family was hit with the very scary news that I have cervical cancer. OF COURSE YOU ALWAYS THINK "THIS IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN TO ME"! but it did and now we just have to deal with it.
Due to the overwhelming amount of support I decided to start a blog, mainly because I have good and bad days and simply don't have enough energy to manage all the positive responses. Also, I try to sleep as much as I can so I can heal fast and build my energy for what is coming and to try to be my normal self while the boys are home. So, please do not take offense if my two little angels Lucila and Carol stop you from talking to me or see me. They know first hand
my struggles.
Although I started this blog to inform everyone of our situation, I also started it because I like to write and this might help relieve some of the stress and all the lingering thoughts that run in my head while I stare at the ceiling wondering what is going to come ahead.
Here we GO! Most people wanna know how we discovered the news. Well, JC and I started an exercise routine to be healthier, shortly after we started JC was feeling invigorated, but for some reason I started feeling drained. Something not unfamiliar to me, since I have always been very busy, most of you know that I have worked, gone to school and been a mom and wife who did everything herself. A self proclaimed "Super Woman" ;0), more like a recipe for disaster, but yeah we will tackle that at a later time. In any case, I was feeling extremely tired and stressed again nothing abnormal for me, but starting to concern me enough to visit the Dr. She mentioned, well I do not think anything is wrong with you, but we will take a blood test and I think you have sleep apnea because you are over weight and you are probably not getting enough sleep! I knew she was full of it, when I got to the office next morning and Kurt my office mate had just been tested for the same thing and he is the total opposite from me, tall, young and slim (you're welcome Kurt).
I said, eh, I will skip that recommendation, 'cause obviously this is not a real
solution to my problem.
A couple of weeks later I come back to the Dr. because I am extremely stressed and feeling overwhelmed and after that time of the month it just kept coming. I did not know what was wrong, because I had no symptoms, no pain,
just stress, lots of stress... so I figured eh, I just turned 40 and have a lot of stress, maybe is nerves or something hormonal. So she sends me to get a sonogram and another blood test. Nothing! Everything comes back normal.
She actually starts looking at me as if I am a Hypochondriac! and by now the second month of going through the same cycle, she says perhaps you need to see a Gyno, so she mails me a list of her recommendations.
After my disappointment with this Dr. I said forget it, I am going to take ownership and do this on my own, so, as I usually do all my research I Googled
a list a of GYNO's in Vienna, VA and truly chose the one with the Scandinavian name ;0)
Well, I went in on a Monday, the Dr took a 5 minute look and said immediately this is serious, he had a pale look and simply told me, I am about to retire and this is going to require more than I can dedicate and commit to you. So he asked me to immediately go across the street to a different Gyno. Oh yeah I forgot to mention that JC had taken the day off because that was Jeremy's 6th Birthday and we where planning on taking cupcakes for Jeremy to his school!
So, JC went with me! As we go to the new Dr., he is on call and has to leave to the Hospital, but takes time to take a quick look! and tells me we are operating in 2 days and sends me for a series of pre-op tests. Scary but still not fully understanding the gravity of it.
Wednesday I go for surgery and they remove a polyp and send it for biopsy, the hospital staff tells me, we will be give results in a couple of weeks. Within 24 hours Dr Garcia is calling me with the results! He tells me: "Nita, I have the results of your biopsy and I am sorry to tell you the news are not good and you have Cancer in your cervix!
Never, in a million years as kids say, would I have thought I would hear those words. For some reason JC had taken then day off to be there for me after surgery, I remember grabbing his fore arm and I looked in in his eyes and I just mouthed "Cancer". He looked at me as if confused and said "WHO, YOU?"
and cried out the most painful cry I have every heard. Not knowing what else to say, I said thank you Dr. and he told me he had an oncologist set up for me to see and some extra test to do to prepare before my appointment.
In shock, we call Betsy to come over and we rush the kids out of the house, we call Linda (our neighbor) and told her, we need to send you our kids, we just got bad news. The did not wanna go and we had to literally force them out of the house. We felt horrible, Jeremy had taken a bath and his wet hair was dripping as they where running towards the neighbors house. As they leave we cry and share our thoughts with our friends and neighbors as we try to calm our selves down with the scary news!
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