Update

So it has been a long time since I last updated and that is because I have been very busy. I have purchased and moved into a townhouse on the north side. I have also been volunteering at our church every second Friday and with that and Pilates I am starting to have less and less time for anything. I finally think I am pretty much unpacked and I am loving the new place so far.

I am going on the 10th of December for another surgery and hopefully I will get the results before Christmas. The results usually come 10 to 14 days after the surgery so I have to wait. I am hoping and praying that all of the cancer is gone and I can finally continue with my surgery.

Twins, Surgery and Camping

The last two weeks have been pretty busy.  I have hardly been home because exactly 2 weeks ago Michelle and Richard had twin boys Ryan and Mark and I went to see them over the long weekend.  It was a lot of fun to see the babies when they were so tiny and hang out with my family during that weekend.  Here is a picture of my handsome nephews:

Then on Thursday I had a minor surgery to see if my cancer is still there and how many cells there were and if the medicine is working or not.  Everything went well and I am just awaiting the results.  The only thing that worried me was when I woke up I was still on the operating table and I was worried that I was still having the surgery but I woke up right when they had finished so that was all right as long as they were done I was glad to be awake again.

On Saturday I drove down to Kananaskis to go camping for the weekend.  I was looking forward to this trip for a while and I was glad that I was feeling well enough to go.  We went on a couple of hikes and I was so that night I could have gone to bed at 8:00pm instead we went to a play at a amphitheatre and then when we got out the conservation officer informed us that there was a bear beside our car so we had to be escorted back to our vehicles.  Then on Sunday we went geocaching in Canmore before we went home.

Lately it seems like lots of people that I know are sick.  It is kind of weird because before I had my diagnosis I never noticed it as much.  Maybe it was because I was in my own little world or maybe you hear it and you do not think of it so much.  I guess being sick makes you more aware of everyone else's illnesses.  It also makes you aware of your mortality and how God knows the number of our days even though we do not know them.

...

I was on Facebook today and found some pictures I wanted to share with you all.  The first one shows what Gastric Bypass surgery is and the changes that they make to your stomach to bypass it.

The second picture is the reason why I am doing this surgery.  Although I do not have a lot of symptoms because of my weight I do not want to continue and then have these problems in the future.

Hopefully that helps clarify why I am doing this surgery and what I am having done to me.  I was at my support group meeting this week and they spoke about whether of not they would tell people that they have had the surgery again.  When people hear that you are having the surgery or have had the surgery they think that it is the easy way out.  I have to remember that the surgery is a tool it is not the only thing that you do to loose the weight.  You also have to make sure you are eating the correct amount of calories and complete physical activity.  This surgery is known to have the greatest benefits in the first year and then after that while you still have the restriction your body has adjusted to the change and you loose weight more slowly.  I am not quite sure what I have decided.  Will I tell everyone that I know or just select people.  I guess I will have to decide.

One year

So I was thinking today that last Saturday it would have been one year since I went into the emergency room late at night because of extreme pain and blood clots resulting in large blood loss. I had had the symptoms before but I just thought that they were normal until that day when they became extreme. They even ended up having to give me morphine for the pain because no other pain medicine would help then as fast as this pain came in left and I was released. The er doctor wanted to do a emergency D&c to stop the bleeding and then it stopped. The doctors were all baffled but they told me to follow up in a couple of days with my doctor so she could make sure that my blood levels were normal and then I got to drive he from red deer as I was not permitted to drive all the way to lethbridge because I had lost almost enough blood to need a blood transfusion in only a couple of hours so the doctor wanted me close to my gynecologist in case this happened again.

In a couple of weeks it will be one year from my first d&c and one year since I started my hormone treatment. For some reason it seems like a short time but also like a long time too.

This sickness has caused me to become more and more patient and also become closer to God. It has also delayed my surgery from 4 months to 14 months and counting. I think in a way this is good because I do not think I was ready for it then. I had committed to it on paper but I did not fully grasp the decision that I made. So this year has helped me to get to know other people that have had the surgery so that I can be 100% sure that I need to have this surgery.

I just signed the paperwork for my surgery in August this is to see if the cancer is there. I am just hoping and praying that this time I will get the positive results that I am cancer free.

Update

Lately I have been starting to update my blog and I cannot think of anything to write.  I have been taking my pill for 1 month and 1 week and today I am finally starting to feel somewhat normal again.  It seems like when I start to take a new medicine then I have to take several other pills to counteract the medication's side effects.  Also since they are adjusting my hormone levels there are a lot of side effects that could happen.  


On Sunday it was my niece Katie's first Birthday.  Since she lives far away we never went to see her on her birthday but hopefully I will get to be able to see her soon.  Katie's birthday is also the day that I first had the symptoms that I had pre cancer.  I ended up in the hospital in Red Deer and never got to see her until she was a week old because I was not allowed to travel long distances.  


Well I cannot think of anything else to update.  Right now my life is pretty boring all I seem to have the energy for is work, go to gym and then I fall asleep.  So I don't really have that much to update you all with.

New Drug...

So my oncologist phoned me last night to let me know I was approved for a new drug.  This drug although there is research to say that it does help reverse this kind of cancer is not approved for this treatment so we had to wait to get special permission to use it.


The approval just came from the government so I am going to be starting this treatment right away.  This drug will stop my body from producing estrogen so that the Megestrol pills that I am currently taking will work more effectively.  Unfortunately this pill has a lot of side effects so I hopefully do not get them all because that would make the next couple of months drag by if I am sick all of the time.  But I guess I should not worry about it too much and just wait to see if I get the symptoms.  

So...

I was blog surfing and it always frustrates me when the blogs are never updated regularly and then I realized that I should update my blog because it has been a while.


Last weekend Shauna and I took the long trip down south to visit Michelle, Richard and Katie.  We even brought Harley along much to Katie's delight because even though Katie loves to see Harley and attempt to pet him as he flies by and Harley does not like her too much.  He cannot figure out what she is so it is kind of funny to watch them together.  


Katie has started to crawl!!!! It is pretty neat to see how much she grows each time you see her.  She is getting pretty big and she loves to be walked around the room so hopefully soon she will be walking.  


The twins are due in under 3 months from now so Michelle and I went to the fabric store after Jenny's wedding and picked out fabric for some quilts for the babies crib blankets.  I am planning on going back down there in a couple of weeks and we are going to quilt them together.  It is going to be lots of fun.


Lately I have started to crochet again and quilt.  I am almost finished my next quilting project I just have to bind it so when I have my surgery I can snuggle under my new blanket and relax.  Well try to relax any ways I after my last surgery I was going stir crazy after only a couple of days at home so hopefully I do not go crazy especially if I have 2 surgeries.  But I will have to wait until the beginning of August to find out what is happening.  

Decision

After several weeks of not knowing what I was going to I have finally decided that I am going to continue doing the treatment instead of just having surgery to remove it.  The reason for this is because although the cells are still there they have decreased significantly since October which indicates that the cells are responding to treatment.  They are just not responding as fast as they wanted them to be.  So for now I am continuing on hormone treatment and my doctor is seeing if they can get approval for a breast cancer drug that has shown in studies to help cure this form of cancer.  The government has to approve the use of this drug because it is currently only approved for breast cancer treatment so they have to have special permission to use it.  The only problem with this drug is it has a lot of negative side effects but if it is only for a couple of months I think I can live with it.  

Waiting...

So it seems like I am always waiting for some sort of results or procedures. On Monday I had my D&C and now I am just waiting for the results. I was hoping to get them today because my doctor should say that they should be in today but he did not call me today so I have to wait. Hopefully he will call me tomorrow so I do not have to wait til Monday.

I am really looking forward to finding out the results and I am really hoping I have them before my visit at the clinic on Tuesday so we can make some decisions. It is really hard to be optimistic about the results because of all of the past results I have gotten so I think it is easier to expect the worst then think of the best.

So now I wait to here back the results so that we can find out what we will happen in the future.

So...

It has been a while since I last posted.

I have been really busy with work, school, quilting, pilaties and the gym to not even have time to write.

I just thought I would quickly update to say that I am still alive and that I am going to be having my D&C on April 9th to see if the cancer has responded to treatment.

Work...

Grrr.... It seems like nothing ever changes at my work. I am getting so frustrated with it. When people quit they just give me all of there work until they find someone new. I just wish that I could just do my job and not everyone else's job. It gets so frustrating. But I have to remember that there are positives regarding my job:

1) That I have steady employment

2) That I can take off time from work for Doctors appointments and I still get paid for them. To be honest I take off at least 4 or 5 times a month to visit my various doctors.

3) They still pay me when I take off time because I have had surgery and I still get vacation time.

4) I like working with the people that I work with most of the time anyways.

I just have to remember this when I get frustrated.

Jeremiah 29:11

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Last Saturday Michelle and Richard came over and in the evening my Dad and Richard went out and we had a girls night. Michelle, my mom and me. Lately I have been pretty depressed with my whole situation and we watched the movie "Soul Surfer." In this movie the main character has her arm bitten off and her whole life has changed in a second and she uses this verse as encouragement to remember that God is in control of everything that happens in our lives. A couple of years ago I bought a tile with this verse on as a gift for a friend. For some reason I never gave the gift to them and I have it in my bedroom. I look at it every day but for some reason the words these words have a whole new meaning. For the past year it seems like my life has been on hold. I had to wait to have my gastric bypass (which still has not happened), I had to wait to have my cyst removed and then I had to wait to see if my cancer has been isolated to one spot or if it had spread throughout my body.

I can make plans for my life but I am not in control of my life. God has planned how my life will turn out before I was even born. I cannot change anything that is happening but I can work on improving my health by doing what the doctors say and by praying.
Life is never easy. There are a lot of ups and downs throughout it but I have to put my trust in the Lord that he will help me get through all of this.

I cannot wait for the weekend. Especially since it is the long weekend and Michelle and Richard are coming for a visit. It seems like it has been a long time since I have seen them but I guess it is only a month and a half since they were last here.

I am thinking that I need to have a holiday to get away from everything that is happening right now. I should take some time off as I have a lot of time banked so that I can rest.

I am feeling a lot better today then on Friday. I also have gone from being so tired all the time that all I do is sleep to having a hard time getting asleep. Which is really weird but if I wait a week I probably will not be able to stay awake anymore.

Today...

On days like today I just wish I felt normal again. I am tired of always feeling blah...

So I thought that I would change my blog a little bit to make it easier to read. Well actually I could not figure out a way to make the titles on the sidebar to change from white to black so I just made the whole background black and that solved all of my problems. Well I think it did any ways.

I have to figure out a way to pick up my medication from the hospital on Friday. I ordered it but they are open the same hours as I work so maybe I will just leave work a little bit early so I can pick it up.

So I went to my doctor a couple of days ago because I have not been feeling well for a couple of weeks and she basically said well you are sick so you should not be feeling the same as you did before you got sick. And that maybe I should slow things down a little and then I would not be so tired all the time. Since I have been going to bed super early everyday I am pretty sure I have slowed down a lot and I am not as busy as I used to be. Lately it seems like all I do is work, go to the gym, school and sleep. And I guess I should add going to the doctor because it seems like I am always a one of my doctors offices at an appointment. I think this is the first week in a while where I currently do not have any doctors appointments scheduled.

Results...

The doctor finally called me regarding my results yesterday from my MRI and CT Scan. They indicated that the cancer has not spread and that the cancer is isolated and that they are going to continue as they were originally planing so I will have a follow-up meeting with the doctor next week and then they will finalize my treatment plan.

Also yesterday I went to the support group meeting again. I was unsure whether I should go or not because of everything that is happening my gastric bypass surgery has been on hold but Adrianna convinced me that I should go just to talk to the people that go to the meeting because even if my surgery is on hold I still have a lot in common with the people there and she was right. Sometimes it is easier to talk to people in a group setting then talking to people face to face. Even if you see them every day.

So...

Now I wait all my tests are done so I am just waiting for the results. I never knew that I was inpatient until I had to wait for these results. They told me the results will be ready within a week so that is only 2 more days and I still have not heard from them. But in a way that might be a good thing that they did not call right away but not knowing is kind of nerve racking. So hopefully I get a call soon.

I had my appointment with the clinic and it went quite well. They are just going to monitor me at the clinic until I have the ok from the doctors at the cross cancer to continue. So I will go there every three months for a appointment and every month for a weigh in. They are just going to be quick appointments because my file is kind of on hold right now. Hopefully everything will go well for me there.

So I started school again last week and I already forgot how much work school can be especially if you are not used to being in school any more. Also when you have been out of school for almost a year you fill up your evenings and weekends with other stuff so it is hard to add school into the equation again. But this is my last class and then I will be an official college graduate. I am not quite sure I might go back for more classes because I seem to get back all of my money back after taxes so that could also improve my employability in case I ever need to have a new job.

I was thinking about buying a house or a mobile home in the spring but now I am not quite sure if I will be able to do it now because I wanted to wait a couple of months between my last surgery and my move out day and I have no clue when that would be now. So maybe instead of moving out I will go on a vacation I am not quite sure.

Well I am kind of babbling and I better go eat my lunch before it is time to go back to work.

Two Tests down one more to go...

So today I had my second test to see if the cancer has spread or not a CT Scan. For some reason I thought that a CT Scan put you in a narrow tube like the MRI Machine did when I had my MRI in July so I was kind of dreading it. But although it was not as bad as the MRI I still have that test on Thursday and then they will go over the results with me hopefully in the next couple of weeks.

The last test that I had which was a blood test came back negative for any cancer indicators. This is a good thing but it is not the most accurate test to go by so hears to hoping that I hear something back from the cross cancer before January 31st which is my date of my appointment at the weight wise clinic.

My Appointment...

Last week I had my very first appointment at the Cross Cancer Institute. It was actually quite scary to go into the building for the first time because you never quite new what to expect. In the morning we went to an orientation where a very nice man showed us around the hospital and told us what to expect for your first visit. Then we had to wait a couple of hours until it was time for my appointment with the oncologist.

The oncologist explained the type of cancer that I have and that they would normally like to treat this type of cancer with hormone therapy when they have a younger patient. But they have to see if it has spread so they cannot make any decisions until I have a MRI and CT Scan of my body to make sure that the cancer has not spread. So I am having my CT next Monday afternoon and then I just have to wait until they book the MRI and then they will make a decision regarding how to treat the cancer. She put me on hormone therapy in the meantime because the earlier I am on it the better.

Also she called the weight wise clinic while I was there and they are going to keep me in the program. So I have a meeting there on the 31st because the type of pills that I am on has a major side effect that you will gain weight while on it. So the clinic is going to try and figure out a way to counteract the pills.

I will let you all know how it goes.

2012

This past weekend we celebrated new years and to tell the truth although 2011 was a year where I had a lot of doctors appointments and had 2 different surgery's I was sad to see it go. I was also kind of disappointed that it was already 2012 it seems like just a short time ago we were at the VanK's celebrating 2011 and the fact that Michelle and Richard were going to have a baby and now this year Katie is already 6 months old. But it also seems like it was a long year. It is a year that tried my patience (and believe me if you knew me you would know that I have zero patience.) As it was a year of constantly waiting to here back from the doctor to see when I could have my gastric bypass surgery.

On December 5 I went to the doctors office very excited that I could finally get a letter approving me for surgery. Instead the doctor told me that I have stage 1 cancer. They caught it when it first began because there was no cancer in July but it was there in October. So instead of getting the surgery I have to wait for an appointment at the Cross Cancer to see what my next coarse of action will be. That appointment is in 9 days from now. It is still not sinking in that this is really happening but I have resolved to not worry to much about it until the day of the appointment. I cannot really do anything about it right now I really just have wait and pray about it. So I might be having surgery again in the near future but not the gastric bypass surgery.

The clinic called me two weeks later just before Christmas to tell me that they would like to cancel my bypass surgery and remove me from the program and then I can reapply at a later date when I am well. Right now my family doctor is trying to help me stay in the program. I am not quite sure why they would kick me out of the program instead of just putting my file on hold.

2012 is going to be a year full of ups and downs and so when the clock changed to 12 and I was down town watching the fireworks I was quite sad that 2011 was over because although it was a year of waiting at least there was some hope that I would have my surgery and now I am not sure if I will have it for a really long time. I am just hoping and praying that my appointment will go well next Thursday and that I will have a definite plan after that and my life will no longer seem like it is in limbo.