My first 2 December Appointments

I don't know how everyone else's year goes by, but once I hit October I blink and it it January. It all starts with Caleb's birthday, Ren Fest, Family Reunion, and ends with Halloween. It goes by so quickly! November and December usually feel like they are over in a matter of days. Not this year. Thanksgiving week seemed to last forever. The impatient side of me was ready to get all of this started and eradicate my body of cancer as soon as possible. The anxious side of me was apprehensive and dreading what was to come. So, when December finally rolled around, I am not sure how I was feeling. All of my emotions, feelings, anxieties, and determination were all rolled into one. I had my appointment with the oncologist on December 2. You may be wondering why I would do that before the surgery. I knew there was really nothing she could tell me other than what I already knew. It was mainly to get my foot in the door and the process started. I am sure I looked like death at this appointment. I was so exhausted, even though I feel like I literally sat on the couch the whole week before. I was numb. At this point I was just going through the motions. She went over my biopsy report as well as my CT scans in great detail. She explained what the plan was for Stage 1, but we both knew it was not stage 1. She then went over the protocol for Stage 2 and 3. We did not discuss Stage 4. The visit wasn't super informative, but she did order bloodwork to get a baseline and do more in depth testing of my anemia. 

I went to work the next day. I am thinking half of our team was out, but we had our meeting. Before our closing prayer, someone asked if anyone had any prayer requests. They knew. They knew first. They knew before my kids. The words would not come. It is like they were stuck in my throat. I knew the moment I opened my mouth to speak my eyes would start leaking...darn allergies. The only words that could come out of my mouth were, "I have cancer." My eyes did in fact leak...a lot! I am pretty sure it was so bad my nose leaked too. It must have been super dusty in the office that day.  I probably said more after that, but those three words are all that rattled around in my head. I told my kids prior to this, but I don't think I worded it that way. I feel like I was more 'matter of fact' with them. Kind of like, this is what is happening. Here are the possibilities, next steps, and so on. I also have a tendency to disconnect my words from my feelings. It was at this moment that it all came together. It was no longer all of these little seperate boxes in my brain. I could no longer open one and close one box before moving on and discussing another part from another box. There was no going back. I have cancer. It is real. This is not a dream. I can't will it away and pretend it doesn't exist.

The next day was my appointment with the surgeon. He reviewed all of the test results. He pulled up my CT scans and quickly found the tumor that did show up the last time. He did his examination and then we discussed the plan of action. We discussed scheduling. I told him I wanted the cancer out of my body. If he could do the surgery right now, I would say let's go! Of course, much to my chagrin, it does not work that way. The initial date given was December 17, but that ended up being his on call day. December 20. 

That is my day. It is so far away. How can I live another 16 days with this cancer growing and poisoning my body. How much longer can I go on feeling so horrible. It seemed like for every active day, I needed a full day to recover. I physically could not do anything on a Monday after working all day Sunday. I knew that to be able to have a full Sunday, I could not do anything that required using my energy on Saturday. It was miserable and extremely hard! Remember, I am a go, go, go person. We took the family to Disney world about 15 years ago. I made sure we got our money worth out of the trip. I am all about opening and closing the park to make sure we did it all. I am pretty sure we even had a 16 hour day in the middle of two 13 hour days. This whole new thing of having no energy or even umph to be able to push through was really difficult. It not only felt like my health had been taken from me, but my ability appear as I had endless energy, which many time energized me was gone. It felt like I lost ME. 

16 days...