In June Scott was laid off, this was the floor collapsing in my life. Now we were both unemployed and we had a baby on the way. His unemployment was barely enough for us to pay rent, nevermind utilities and food. We were at a loss how to make this all work on our own. We needed some help. So we went and applied for WIC, and gas assistance, which also gave us a discount on electric. The only thing we didn't have a chance to do yet was apply for food stamps.
Thats because the world would stop moving in July. I laid down on the couch to nap, and awoke to awful pain radiating through my face and head, and the numb feeling still being there, in parts of my face. I couldn't stop crying, it just hurt SO bad. I called for Scott who came out to me. I cried and cried about the pain. I was so scared. Then in a flash I felt so sick. I could barely make it off the couch when I started throwing up across my living room. Like legit, across my living room. It would take days to get the smell out. Scott grabbed a bowl and called my doctor. Back to the ER we went where they gave me meds to stop the vomiting, and once I could hold down 2 graham crackers and a ginger ale, I was sent home.The next day the vomiting returned and the pain still felt awful. I waited overnight to see if it would stop on its own. When it didn't we returned to the ER. I was admitted to labor and delivery so they could monitor the baby, and run tests on me to find out what was wrong. They ran test after test, yet everything came back normal.
After awhile it was decided I had toxemia and had to have the baby. So I was induced. It was a slow process and everything was done to try to speed it up, but my body made no progress. Sometime during all this my doctor asked how my face was feeling. I told him it was still numb, and that my vision was doubled and I couldn't hear out of my right ear. He called in a neurologist. After a brief talk, and neuro exam, he went and looked at my CT scan from before. Now here's a twist, remember that ER visit where I was treated horribly and told I was fine? Yea that CT scan actually DID show something. But whether it was a tumor or clot, he didn't know. All he knew was I couldn't give birth naturally. So I was rushed off for an emergency c-section where I had a beautiful 6lbs 8oz little girl. The little girl I had dreamed of for so long. I was in heaven!
Until the next morning when the earth fell off its axis. The took me for an MRI early in the morning. An hour or so later the nurses were in to hang some medicine on the IV pole, and told me I couldn't nurse. They wouldn't tell me why, just that I had to wait for the doctor. I had been around them enough to know something was seriously wrong. My doctor, and the neurologist, came in shortly after and told me the news. We had spent the night hoping for a clot, a simple surgery, but it was bad. Just how bad we wouldn't know for awhile. I had a 4cm tumor growing behind my right ear near my brain stem. It was swelling and bleeding, causing all kinds of pressure on my brain. I was told that the growth patterns showed it was benign and that a surgery to remove it, and maybe some radiation to completely get rid of it would be all I'd need.
They transferred me to Brigham and Women's hospital where I met my neurosurgeon, and his team. He put us at ease, answered our questions and even made it so Grace could come be with us in the hospital. He preformed more MRI's and other tests and set a surgery date. He, too, told us the growth patterns showed the tumor was benign. It's strange but looking back I realize that we never once asked the question "what are the chances I'll die?". I never once questioned that I'd live. There was no chance in hell I'd give up the chance to live my dream of being a mother.
After the surgery I awoke in the recovery room. I hurt all over. I imagine if I had been hit by a truck it would have hurt less. I could barely talk and forget swallowing! Which made taking the pain pills impossible. It would be days before I could swallow without choking. The surgeon refused to say whether or not the tumor was benign. I knew right then that I had cancer. I refused to say it and I certainly kept trying to convince myself that I was fine, but his change in words told me everything I needed to know.
When I finally returned home, after 3 weeks in hospitals, I was weak. The toll 2 major surgeries took on my body was finally evident. I was weak, and I was so exhausted all the time. I would sleep for hours at a time, I barely had the energy to feed and change Grace when she needed it, a lot of the time Scott had to do it for me. I felt like the worst mother ever. My baby needed me and there was nothing I could do. I just didn't have the strength in me to stay awake most of the time. When I wasn't asleep I would hold my baby and cry because I was afraid I was going to die. How long I waited for what was finally mine, and now I faced loosing it all.
After just a week at home we went back to Boston to get the stitches out and hear the pathology reports. I tried to remain calm but inside I was dying. We sat in that little room, Scott, Grace, my mother and I and we waited. When he finally came in his face said it all. The reports were back, and they weren't good. I had a rare form of cancer called ewings sarcoma, a bone cancer. I was sent to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, where I met a doctor who better explained it. It's a childhood cancer, very rare to show up in adulthood. It's a bone cancer, usually starts in the hips or upper legs. I'd have more scans over the next few days than I can even remember. How much those words scared me. Now I waited for more scans and more doctors to tell me how far this had progressed.
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