MY CANCER STORY~ PART TEN

I fell asleep in Hunks arms knowing that tomorrow would be a very busy day.......




It would be a day filled with calling back applicants for the office position and I also wanted to start making my list for our Christmas shopping....... now that I was looking forward to!

We woke up and started our day like every other family starts theirs. Getting ready for work, getting the rugrats ready for school. But try as I might I was having a hard time shaking the words of my doctor. I could still feel his hand resting on my leg as he asked me why I had to get THIS cancer.

I kept imagining my conversation with him when he called back to give me results. I imagined the conversation from one extreme to the other. From "the results showed there was no cancer" to "the results showed I have a week to live"... I had to get my mind off it it...... I did what I always do when I'm stressed, I started cleaning.. DEEP cleaning. If only I felt up to company after this day. My house was beautiful. It was so clean normally I would have been praying for company to come by so they could see my sink sparkle.



That did the trick. Got my mind off of it and I felt the stress slip away. When the house was clean I went to the office and started going through applications. I picked up the phone and called one of the applicants to set up an interview.



I explained I was looking for someone to work in our office. I told her I was diagnosed with cancer and that we hadn't told the children yet. I started to cry and had to put her on hold. Where was this coming from? I was doing just fine before picking up the phone. I guess it was the first time I was having to say it out loud. The first time I was having to tell someone not in my little tiny circle of people who knew, that I had cancer.



I was so embarrassed but I pulled it together and got back on the phone. I apologized and went on to set up an interview. But I could hear it in her voice. She was also crying. Immediately I knew, unless when she got there she was a wacko nut job, she was who I planned to hire. Her resume looked great and she obviously had compassion.......which was going to be needed. Not so much for me, but for my Hunk and my rugrats.....



I will never ever forget her interview. She pulled up and she was darling. Very pretty girl and really seemed to have it on the ball. She seemed so sincere and trustworthy. She knew her way around office work and had already been doing books for her boyfriends father's business.



The best part was after she left the interview my phone rang. It was her. She called to apologize because she hit my gate post on her way out and knocked it over. It was at that moment that I knew she was the PERFECT person for the job....... That is SUCH A MOVE I WOULD DO......Go to an interview and take out their fence post on my way out..... Yep, she was my girl!



Before I knew it my doctor called. I actually missed his first call. I was out Christmas shopping with my mom and I missed it. I called back but I got the nurse. She said she would have him return my call.



I got back to my parents home and my mom and I were talking, as usual..... it is what I do so well. ;) My cell phone rang. It was my doctor. I grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil so I could take notes. It was obvious how nervous I was when I went to write as he was speaking. My hands were shaking so badly I couldn't write. I could hardly hold the pencil in my hand. It was scribbles all over the page. I had to calm myself down. I was begging my hand to stop. I had to take these notes. He was telling me that he had the results back and that the grade of my cancer was not low grade it was "High Grade"...... This didn't help my shaking. He told me he had met with a board of doctors and students (it is a teaching hospital) and there were different opinions on what to do. Some said to just start chemotherapy. Some said to go back in and remove other things that I don't need that the cancer could spread to and to take a look around and some biopsies. I asked him what HIS opinion was. He stated that he liked to know exactly what he was dealing with and he wanted to remove the fatty lining in my stomach, he wanted to remove some lymph nodes and biopsy my liver, he wanted to complete my hysterectomy to a "full hysterectomy" and remove the rest of my.....ya know...woman parts.... So I told him that I wanted to go this route. I didn't feel there was TOO MUCH we could do. I wanted to do anything and everything we could do to rid me of this awful disease called Cancer.



I made an appointment for surgery and an appointment a couple days prior to the surgery to go over everything further and we hung up. I was crying and shaking and was trying to pull it together... I kept telling myself we were doing something about it. I was going to slay this dragon. But I was still shaking inside. It was still so surreal that I had just hung up with an oncologist. That I had to discuss surgery and biopsies and chemotherapy. It was a lot harder at this point to imagine it was all an error on someones part. Yes, originally there was an error in the grade of my cancer but unfortunately it wasn't an error that it was cancer it was an error that it wasn't LOW grade cancer.....



Time to get things in order. It was almost Christmas. Every Christmas we went to our home up in the mountains and this year would not be any different. I needed to go this year more than ever. I needed to spend time with my family. I needed to try to get my mind off of it. I needed a sense of "normalcy in my life."



I hired our office help and no sooner did she start we left for our home up in the mountains. I am so grateful that she was everything I thought her to be as I gave her the key to our office and hit the road. She did great. She was an angel sent down in my time of need and I will always be forever grateful for her help. She is now home raising her own two rugrats. She is a great momma and it is exactly where she belongs.



I had a bit of a break down at our Cabin (home) in the mountains. I had to call and get hotel rooms for Hunk, my parents and my sister, her Hunk and my baby nephew. My sister's mother in law was also coming to help watch the baby for my sister. The breakdown was just an overload. I do feel sorry for the gal at the registration desk of the hotel. She wasn't aware of the "discount" that I was previously told I would receive and did previously receive (at our first visit to the oncologist) for being a patient of the hospital. After freaking out, I apologized and explained I'm just under a lot of stress. She said she understood. Poor Gal.

At this point I was exhausted.. I went up to our bedroom to lay down. My mom and sister watched after the kids for me.

I couldn't sleep so I pulled out my lap top and I typed a letter to Hunk. A letter I still have. A letter he will keep forever. It was a letter from my heart and somehow I felt a little better after writing it.

To be continued....