Monday, January 12, 2015

sometimes i need positive polly

So here goes.


It's been almost ten years since I was first diagnosed with cancer.  When I look back I see how so much has changed.  I could start on about how I look so different and how the different treatments bring me different looks.  For a while every year I had a different look and didn't recognize myself ever.  But I'm not going to get into that.  I have complained, chatted, whined, cried about it so many times it just isn't important to me anymore and it doesn't hold the weight that it used to.  Haha weight pun without trying.  I'm so good.  So enough about the subject I wasn't going to talk about.

At this point in my life I almost take everything as a joke.  Like, my internal medicine doctor could be a comedian talking only about my reactions to the things he tells me.  The last appointment with him was right before New Year's.  It was a scheduled checkup.  I hadn't been feel super great, but then again I never do.  He looked at me, asked me about my symptoms, then immediately sent me to get a chest X-ray, blood work, and a flu test.  All of which I thought was an over reaction of a very cautious and caring doctor.  Pneumonia.  Again.  Thank God for that very cautious, over reactive, caring doctor.  Boy, it really makes a difference when you have the right doctors.  This man will personally call me on the phone with test results on a Sunday if he feels it's important.  I will forever be in debt to Nichole Whetstone, who used to work there and referred me to him.  I'm not going to say the doctor's name just because I really haven't asked if he would mind, I don't know, I just feel weird about it. 

Oh back to humor and such.  So he's looking at the results and says pneumonia.  Let me just say this.  I had pneumonia twice this past summer which as a result landed me in the hospital and changed my life.  When I was better I received the pneumonia shot.  You know the shot so you don't get pneumonia.  So back to the doctor's office.  He told me about pneumonia and I immediately broke into an insane laughter.  It was the funniest thing to me.  I went in for a normal check up and was told I had pneumonia.  I mean, seriously, that was so funny to me.  Doc looked at me like I was crazy for a second then smiled with me.  We spoke about how because I did have the shot the symptoms weren't as bad as they should be and we caught it early he thought.  I don't think I stopped giggling until the next day.  Just kidding but it was for a while.  

I think back over the ten years and I wonder if I always would laugh in the doctors face as they were telling me bad news.  I remember, at first, I was Positive Polly, nodding and smiling and ready to kick some cancer ass.  Researching for hours, talking with anyone I knew in the medical field, asking them to explain stuff to me until I understood.  I reassured everyone that I was great and couldn't wait for life to get back to normal.  I was sad about the 40 lb weight gain in a month and the increase in feet size but I decided if that was all I had to complain about then I was okay.  I did have days when it would hit me and I would break but I had a lot of Positive Polly days.  And it did get back to normal, at least for a little while.  Well kind of normal.  I left my husband and moved in with my parents and shared a room with Madisyn for awhile.  

So I finished radiation in March and September 11th I got the news of more cancer.  I'm trying to remember how I reacted.  Oh I remember, I was pissed.  I wanted to break my phone (they called me with the news) and I think they let me leave work.  Since it was a temp job, and I needed time off for a couple surgeries, they let me go.  That pissed me off too.  So I was pretty angry then.  Alot happened between me and the doctors that I'm not getting into and it was a very unpleasant experience.  Yet I was Positive Polly with everyone, met some great people during treatment, one who led me to my oncologist that I have today.  Thank you Judy Davis.  I don't know if I'd still be here at all if it wasn't for you.  I know she doesn't read this but oh well lol.  

I could go on and on and on with all the different ways I have reacted to news given to me.  Mostly bad news.  Always was the good news that it hadn't spread outside into other organs.  There's Polly Positive jumping in.  But the longer it's been and the more that's happened and news after news after news I'm at this point where if someone asks me how I'm doing I kind of just shrug.  Make a face maybe.  Dramatic sigh.  Not so much with the GOOD!  And when the doctors give me bad news I laugh in their face apparently.  I know this isn't the first time I crazy laughed to him but the look he gave me was so classic.  Just a shocked, wtf face.  At times I wonder if I should be worried, that maybe I've crossed some line into a mentally crazy world.  Then I realized I like my crazy so I stop worrying.  

Well, I went to see the doctor about getting the defibrillator as suggested by my cardiologist because my heart still isn't getting any better.  It's been six months and my heart hasn't improved with the medicine I'm on.  Well my talk with the electrophysiologist (seriously the name of a profession.  I now have an electrophysiologist) brought about some interesting information.  My MediPort is a problem.  This is the device above my clavicle on the right side that is attached to a vein so they can give me meds though it i.e. chemo, antibiotics, vitamins, fluids, etc.  They can also be used to take blood but most of the time the clinics won't use them, plus mine is so picky that half the time there isn't any blood return.  Well apparently there is a huge risk involved with me having a MediPort and a defibrillator.  There is a high chance of infection.  I was kind of shocked.  So I asked him, how many times have you put a defibrillator into someone with cancer and a MediPort.  He says Never.  Not what I was expecting.  I was thinking, this must be a common problem and there must be different was around it.  Apparently it isn't.  He asked when would I be finished with treatment.  It kind of confused me and I stared at him like a deer in headlights.  So he asked in a different way, when will I be in remission and stopping treatment.  Still confused but kind of understanding, he must not have looked too hard at my chart.  Good enough to know some of my history but must have misunderstood something.  So I just say, it's been ten years.  Gave him a little shock as he did the math on how old I was when all this started and what I have been through, he completely looked floored but gave me another option that is different in the sense that it's placed on my side and it runs under my chest but with all the scar tissue and such that became another no. 

I left there like a dog with it's head between it's legs.  I couldn't decide which was worse.  Finding out that your heart is bad enough that your cardiologist wants you to get a defibrillator or finding out you can't get one.  I cried when my cardiologist suggested it.  I didn't want it to be real.  But going to the doctor and finding out it's not an option just kind of floored me.  I didn't really know what to feel.  I wasn't happy, I knew that.  I was so confused.  I was numb.  I'm still working through those feelings.  I feel like I'm in this dark, ugly bubble that just surrounds me everywhere I go.  When I see people it kind of melts away until they ask how I am but one thing is for sure, people help it.  The pneumonia definitely hasn't helped, although I'm feeling better now.  And then I'm cranky because I don't have long sleeve shirts to wear under dresses, well I also need different dresses and some warm leggings.  Every day when I wake up and it's cold I'm like ugh!  But that's just a whine, nothing really important.  But for real, it really has been one thing after the other but I'm working on myself because it could be worse, so much worse.  Sometimes I need Polly Positive.  

Some really great things have happened that I must tell you about because I've been all grim and dark so I want to show you it's not all bad!

My family threw a 10 year Cancerversary Party for me!  It was so great!  I got to see so many of you and enjoyed every minute of it.  The pneumonia didn't stop this girl.  I didn't know I had it then but it was so funny, I felt crappy so I brought a blanket with me.  Like a security blanket.  Sometimes if I'm bad off and I'm leaving chemo I take their blankets lol.  I refuse to give them back because I need a blankie.  This is new with cancer I swear.  I didn't grow up still needing a blankie.  Well not until I was 25.  I didn't end up needing my blankie though.  It stayed on the couch the whole time.  I didn't even really need my oxygen until the end.  I was able to run around talking to people without trailing that stupid thing behind me.  I think I named it once but I forget.  So anyway, it was seriously awesome and thanks to all of my family.  Mom, Dad, Cristin, James, Erin, Aaron, Kenny, Courtney, Kelly, Scott, Casey, and Yen, and Leigh Anne for your help with getting people's information to Cristin.  You all rock.  Casey and Yen I missed you guys!

There is also a major blessing in the middle of happening but I don't want to tell you about it until it happens.  EECK!  I can't wait!

I finally have been assigned to a new doctor at M.D. Anderson's!  It's been so long.  What a process.  But she personally called me today and I go at the end of the month and I can't wait for that either!

Our Christmas was amazing.  Thanks to everyone who made it magical for us.  In fact the tree is still up because I never want her to take it down lol.  That and we all have been sick, me, Madisyn, and Meg, the girl who did our Christmas tree.  But seriously I never want to take it down.

Well, I'm passing out so I'm going to say good night.  Thanks for everything, especially just being there.  Love you all.







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