The Beginning ...

I knew I had a problem but my Mother was dying and there was nothing going to take me away from her. It felt as if I had spent the last twenty years with only a few holidays and a couple more visits a year to spend with her and I wasn't giving up this time to try and play catch up in my heart. Cancer can be such a wicked invader in so many ways. We lost our Mom on June 8th 2009. Funny thing was, I had places to go and people to see before I could take care of business. By the time I finally made it to the doctor the mole on my back was not only itching like crazy, but I had to keep a band-aid it to keep it from messing my shirts. I never thought I'd be that kind of person, who would put this kind of treatment off for so long, like some women finding a lump in her breast and ignoring it for months on end. I think there was a part of me that knew all along what was coming and just didn't want to deal with it.

Found out on my birthday that I had cancer and I was seeing a surgeon the next day. (am I boring you yet?) Anyway, lets speed this up, first surgery on Aug. 12, 2009. They did a wide resection of my back where the mole was and since it had spread to my lymph nodes under my left arm, they took all those from me as well. But, I was cured according to the first oncologist I saw!! Since surgery was the main cure they had done their job and nothing more was needed, go home and live. Until he started getting feedback from all my other providers who were in shock that no chemo was administered. Then I needed to go get a second opinion in Chicago. Yanno, I never did like Chicago much, to big, to much....but now, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth! I still go there, my son lives there, goes to school there and probably always will be there. Saw one oncologist who asked me if anyone had talked numbers with me,I just looked at him. He said, "You have a 65% chance of this coming back within 10 years and at that time there won't be much we can do". He recommended chemo that gives you a 20% chance of helping but he didn't have room in his clinic right at that moment. To bad, we had living to do, we were going on a cruise and besides, in 10 years, who knew what they would have available by then. OH well, we had a great family cruise end of December into the New Year and everyone had a great time. We forgot the word cancer in our vocabulary, except in the context of sunscreen. We were in the Caribbean after all and we were all a bunch of pasty mid-westerners.

Then came the truth about a small little lump I had been trying to forget about since mid December, on purpose this time.