Life certainly never goes as planned; in fact, in AA there’s even a saying “live life on life’s terms”. So much easier said than done. While I am still sober, and at no point during the past months of this year did I even have a scant thought of alcohol, I definitely struggled to cope with the stress of everything. To start on a positive note, my family and I had an absolutely wonderful month-long drive around the southern part of the country while my husband did research for work. While he worked, I was blessed to have time to explore the areas with my toddler and had some great bonding time. Of course, like any trip, we were met with some bumps in the road, some a bit costly, such as having one of our run-flat tires suddenly blow out and we had to have it replaced while traveling. Must have rolled too close to something sharp at some point. We also had great visits with our parents, and look forward to the next time we get to see them.
So, late last year, we noticed a substantial amount of black mold in the house we had been leasing. Leading up to the discovery, we had been experiencing various respiratory related health problems. Our landlord was so-so about getting it resolved, it felt like we had to stay on him. In the end, we were not very happy with the work done and did not feel safe staying there, especially with a very young child. Although we had hoped to wait just a little longer before buying another home, and finances were/are tight, we decided that was a better option than finding another place to lease. We have moved so many times in our adult lives, it’s crazy; on average, every couple of years. We are so tired of it. Since we had all developed mold sensitivity, we were advised by an allergist we had seen to have any new place tested. The first house we were under contract on came back with astronomical numbers for several strains of mold. We had to walk away from that one and lose quite a bit a money as a result, but our health is worth it. That house ended up being pulled from the market immediately and did not go back up for sale for months, by the way. We continued to look and finally settled on a different house, and the sellers refused to negotiate much… argg. In the end, we got the house, and then dealt with painters that started out promising, and turned into a nightmare. The interior paint was original and in abysmal condition, plus it was all a light poopie brown all throughout, so we had it all repainted before moving in. Fast forward to finally getting moved and mostly settled in; house stress largely behind us.
I have not been feeling well for a couple of years now, with this past year being the worst. I repeatedly went back to my primary care physician, who kept blowing it all off. I also complained to my dentist, as I had a non-healing ulceration on my tongue caused by the mouthguard he made that I was wearing at night for grinding my teeth. I have several enlarged lymph nodes in my neck that have been painful and have never gone back to normal. I took it upon myself to start seeing one specialist after another trying to get some sort of answer. In addition to this, I was having severe spinal pain, and issues with my hands being constantly numb to the point I was dropping things. I could not hold a knife to cut veggies, it took forever to wash my hair, I could not create anything artistic, I could barely function. After MRI’s of my spine, we found a few vertebrae in my neck are shifting out of place, in addition to some other issues, but are not compressing nerves at this time, so that was not the cause of my hand problem. However, it did lead to epidural spinal injections to help with pain; I had my lower back done as well. After an EMG, we discovered I had pretty severe carpal tunnel syndrome and needed surgery asap to prevent permanent nerve damage. Got that done, and barely healed up, then I’m back to pushing the issue with the ulcer and lymph nodes. After seeing an ENT who took a biopsy of the ulcer, the pathology report came back that it is indeed cancer.
I was to have a PET/CT scan at the end of last week, but because of caffeine withdrawal (no caffeine for 24+ hours, and I drink at least a pot and a half of coffee a day), I woke up with a raging migraine – one of the worst I’ve had in many years. I also misunderstood the NPO after midnight instructions…apparently that meant no food, but continue pushing water and also take your meds… sigh So, I went in, they did the radioactive IV infusion, not long after, the headache took over and I started vomiting. Only partway into the scan, I started getting sick again, and because of laying flat at that angle, my head felt like it was about to explode. I ended up having a full-on panic attack in the machine and was begging them to get me out because I had to sit up. Apparently I looked pretty damn bad, because the supervisor didn’t even give me much of a choice, he said I needed to get to the ER. I spent a large part of my day there. yay. Over the weekend, more of my routine labs came back, and it turns out I am also bleeding somewhere in my GI tract; thankfully, the ball was already rolling on that end of things. I will be going in for scopes towards the end of the month.
I was able to get rescheduled for the PET/CT for yesterday morning, and this time, I took my meds, and proactively took something for both nausea and migraine since I was dancing with the beginnings of a headache. I managed to get through it this time. Although I do not know the full results yet, I did find out this afternoon that the spot in my mouth we knew about lit up, as well as a neighboring lymph node. I had surgery today to cut out part of the back of my tongue and the doctor did an aspiration of the node. So now I can barely talk or swallow anything and the pain sucks. I will find out next week more after the path reports come in and I go in for follow-up. On top of this, the foot I had major surgery on a year ago started hurting very intensely over the past month (no injury), so now I have to get an MRI of that.
To be totally honest, I am terrified that the cancer has spread, simply because so much time has passed. I have been so exhausted, and although I know not to future trip and worry about what I can’t control, I feel I can’t help it this time. I have more reason to worry than ever – she is three years old and needs her Mommy. And as a Mom, I feel horrible, almost like a failure, for all the times I have been recovering from surgery and cannot be the one to care for her, only to listen to her cry I want Mommy. It breaks my heart that she plays pretend on her phones like she is talking to doctors, and will ask if we are going to the doctor today. I don’t want her to have to think about these things; she is too young. I am scared. For myself. For her. For my husband who is also struggling with this and is equally, if not more angry that it was ignored for so long. I was thinking in the shower the other day and the strangest feeling came over me: I have been suicidal so many times in my life, and now I am in a position where I both need and want to fight for my life. I’m not ready to checkout just yet.
Thoughts, Inspiration, Ideas by a Daydreaming Artist 