What is grief? It can be so many things. It's kind of funny, and sad, and also appropriate that I got this exact prompt at this exact moment in time.
Today is my cousins birthday. My cousin S battled with bipolar disorder for a long time. He became an alcoholic like his mother. We all knew something was going on with him. He slowly started unfriending cousins on facebook. He was pulling away from everyone he loved, everyone who loved him.
He fought the demons in head for so long. He even became a decorated soldier in the U.S. Air Force. Despite his many accomplishments, his 4 beautiful children, brand new wife and baby girl, the demons won.
I remember the day all to clear. August 24, 2014 my entire family was forever changed. S had been drinking, as usual. He had become irrational and his wife got scared. She decided she needed to get the baby out of there so she could help S. While she was buckling the baby in the car the deafening sound of a gun shot pierced through the afternoon around her and she knew. She knew what she was going to walk in to see when she went back in their apartment. S took one of his many guns (that in my opinion he should NOT have owned in his mental state, but that's another story entirely) and committed suicide by a singke gun shot to his head.
S was just a few months away from retiring from the Air Force and moving to Texas to be close to his wifes family. But he never made it.
The grief that swept over my family was the worst grief I've ever known. Even when our matriarch, my Grammy, my moms mom, passed away, leaving a void in all of us that no one else could ever fill, we did not experience grief the way we did, and still do, 8 months later, as we did when S took his life.
Today is S's birthday. He would have been 38. He will never see his son become a man. He will never see his baby girl grow up. My uncle R and my cousin C, S's father and sister, don't have a son and brother to call on anymore. His mom, my ex aunt, has gone even deeper into the bottle than she already was.
How do you explain this brand of grief? How do you tell someone your cousin blew his hesd off when they ask you about your Air Force sweatshirt? How do you not burst into tesrs when you see his picture or when a Daddy Long Leg crawls across your path because S HATED Daddy Long Legs with a fierce passion?
In 4 short months it'll be one year since my family lost S to suicide. August will never be a happy month again. But I will fake it for my daughter and my nephew whose birthdays are just days before tragedy forever changed my family.
We miss you and think about you every day S. I hope your up there dancing the polka with Grammy and playing Scrabble with her and uncle M (who we lost way too young at the age of 56 in May 2014 to severe illness)! You are very loved dear cousin S.
Saturday, April 18, 2015
Sunday, March 15, 2015
So You Are 12
Dear M,
My niece. The first child to make be an Aunty. Today you turned 12. I just can't wrap my mind around it yet. How did 12 years go by? They say time flies by in the blink of an eye. So it should be easy to stop time then right? Don't blink. Just don't blink and babies wont grow up. Haha! Oh how I wish that were true! And yet I don't. Because if time stopped when you were born, not one of my other 4 kids or your 2 other cousins from your other Aunty would be here and that makes me sad to think about not having all 9 of you amazing kids!
But that's not the point of why I'm writing this. I want to talk about amazing you. I want to tell you all the wonderful things about you from the moment you were born. So here goes...
March 15, 2003 my little sis A, your mom, brought you into this world; very early in the morning. You were an itty bitty, most adorable little thing. I became an Aunty for the very first time that day. And I couldn't be happier that you are YOU!
You are so smart. Do you know how smart you are? Let me tell you.
When you were just a week old you tilted your head back in your baby bathtub until it touched the warm water and when your mommy tried to "right" you, you protested and moved yourself back until the back of your head was back in that wonderful warm water.
You memorized the pattern of everyones phone numbers and called Mimi (mommy's and my mom) when you weren't even 2 years old yet. The 2 of you had an hour long conversation before Mimi realized your mom had no idea you took the phone and called her!
Much like your cousin, my first born who is also wicked smart, when you started school you blew your teachers minds. Genius doesn't even begin to cover it. You're going to go places. You're going make something of yourself. You're going to leave a big impression on this little world of ours someday. Mark my words, you will!
Rewind to when you were 3. Your mom had her wisdom teeth taken out and she had a severe allergic reaction to the pain meds and had to go to the hospital. So your uncle and I watched you while your dad took mommy. Being the little miss sassy pants that you are, I can't even remember what it was you did now, uncle Scot was trying to get you to sit in time-out for whatever it was. Well, you got yourself backed into a corner but did yiu back down from Uncle Scot? Oh no! No you most certainly did not! You put your hands on uoir hips, leaned forward and yelled, "You can't tell me what to do! You're not my mommy-daddy! Cuz' I'm M******! You want to know where I was while this scene transpired? I was on the couch across the room hiding my face, laughing so hard I couldn't breath! Uncle Scot picked up your tiny little 20lb. self and plopped you into the portable crib we used for your new baby cousin. You were so mad! And I found it so funny! Little you... going up against your big old "meanie butt" uncle! I will NEVER forget those words you yelled at him that day. Not ever.
The years go by. You swung from the freezer door. Your mommy took a picture before getting you down. You "washed" an apple with an entire box of baking soda. Mommy took a pic of that too! You held a tarantula much to your other Aunty's chagrin. You got suspended from school for telling your teacher how stupid they were (even though you actually were right and the teacher was being a total dick!).
You love big eyed stuffties, Slim Jim's, and you are a girl after my own heart... You LOVE all things tiny! Teensy weensy tiny things!
You are M. You are my niece. Happy 12th birthday! I love you more than any words can ever possibly express.
Love,
Aunty Rosie
My niece. The first child to make be an Aunty. Today you turned 12. I just can't wrap my mind around it yet. How did 12 years go by? They say time flies by in the blink of an eye. So it should be easy to stop time then right? Don't blink. Just don't blink and babies wont grow up. Haha! Oh how I wish that were true! And yet I don't. Because if time stopped when you were born, not one of my other 4 kids or your 2 other cousins from your other Aunty would be here and that makes me sad to think about not having all 9 of you amazing kids!
But that's not the point of why I'm writing this. I want to talk about amazing you. I want to tell you all the wonderful things about you from the moment you were born. So here goes...
March 15, 2003 my little sis A, your mom, brought you into this world; very early in the morning. You were an itty bitty, most adorable little thing. I became an Aunty for the very first time that day. And I couldn't be happier that you are YOU!
You are so smart. Do you know how smart you are? Let me tell you.
When you were just a week old you tilted your head back in your baby bathtub until it touched the warm water and when your mommy tried to "right" you, you protested and moved yourself back until the back of your head was back in that wonderful warm water.
You memorized the pattern of everyones phone numbers and called Mimi (mommy's and my mom) when you weren't even 2 years old yet. The 2 of you had an hour long conversation before Mimi realized your mom had no idea you took the phone and called her!
Much like your cousin, my first born who is also wicked smart, when you started school you blew your teachers minds. Genius doesn't even begin to cover it. You're going to go places. You're going make something of yourself. You're going to leave a big impression on this little world of ours someday. Mark my words, you will!
Rewind to when you were 3. Your mom had her wisdom teeth taken out and she had a severe allergic reaction to the pain meds and had to go to the hospital. So your uncle and I watched you while your dad took mommy. Being the little miss sassy pants that you are, I can't even remember what it was you did now, uncle Scot was trying to get you to sit in time-out for whatever it was. Well, you got yourself backed into a corner but did yiu back down from Uncle Scot? Oh no! No you most certainly did not! You put your hands on uoir hips, leaned forward and yelled, "You can't tell me what to do! You're not my mommy-daddy! Cuz' I'm M******! You want to know where I was while this scene transpired? I was on the couch across the room hiding my face, laughing so hard I couldn't breath! Uncle Scot picked up your tiny little 20lb. self and plopped you into the portable crib we used for your new baby cousin. You were so mad! And I found it so funny! Little you... going up against your big old "meanie butt" uncle! I will NEVER forget those words you yelled at him that day. Not ever.
The years go by. You swung from the freezer door. Your mommy took a picture before getting you down. You "washed" an apple with an entire box of baking soda. Mommy took a pic of that too! You held a tarantula much to your other Aunty's chagrin. You got suspended from school for telling your teacher how stupid they were (even though you actually were right and the teacher was being a total dick!).
You love big eyed stuffties, Slim Jim's, and you are a girl after my own heart... You LOVE all things tiny! Teensy weensy tiny things!
You are M. You are my niece. Happy 12th birthday! I love you more than any words can ever possibly express.
Love,
Aunty Rosie
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
I Write For Me
Do you write all things that are real? Do you ever write fiction? Like stories? I do. I have since I was little. I used to let people see my poems (I was a kid, they all mostly rhymed). I once wrote a short story in 3rd grade for school but my teacher loved it and kept it so I don't have it. I remember most of it though and it would make a great children's book.
As an adult, I've started and stopped and started and stopped writing several different stories. Nobody will ever see them but me. I'm not that good at it but I have the stories in my head so I try to put them into words. I don't have a whole lot of writing confidence, I'd NEVER let anyone see what I write, other than the real stuff that I post here. Real stuff comes easy for me.
My daughter read one of the stories I started writing in a composition notebook. I don't use computers. I like good old pen and paper. She didn't really have much of an opinion. But she's also only 13. That further ensures nobody will ever see any story I ever write. Unless I rewrite the kid story I wrote in 3rd grade. That would be ok to let people see.
I know I'm rambling and boring as hell. I want to write though and I don't really have anything to say right now. I can ask you all questions though.
Do you write fiction ever?
Do you let people read it if you do?
Do you think you're any good at it?
Would you even let your best friend read what you write? To answer this I did let my best friend read something I wrote once and she liked it. But I still don't have the writing abilities that I see in the books I read every day. Absolutely NOTHING like my favorite authors.
Like I said, I write for me. If there's a story floating around in my head I put it on paper and I read it and rewrite it a millions times. It's what I've always done. Someday I'll burn all my notebooks before I get old and senile so my family can't get ahold of them.
As an adult, I've started and stopped and started and stopped writing several different stories. Nobody will ever see them but me. I'm not that good at it but I have the stories in my head so I try to put them into words. I don't have a whole lot of writing confidence, I'd NEVER let anyone see what I write, other than the real stuff that I post here. Real stuff comes easy for me.
My daughter read one of the stories I started writing in a composition notebook. I don't use computers. I like good old pen and paper. She didn't really have much of an opinion. But she's also only 13. That further ensures nobody will ever see any story I ever write. Unless I rewrite the kid story I wrote in 3rd grade. That would be ok to let people see.
I know I'm rambling and boring as hell. I want to write though and I don't really have anything to say right now. I can ask you all questions though.
Do you write fiction ever?
Do you let people read it if you do?
Do you think you're any good at it?
Would you even let your best friend read what you write? To answer this I did let my best friend read something I wrote once and she liked it. But I still don't have the writing abilities that I see in the books I read every day. Absolutely NOTHING like my favorite authors.
Like I said, I write for me. If there's a story floating around in my head I put it on paper and I read it and rewrite it a millions times. It's what I've always done. Someday I'll burn all my notebooks before I get old and senile so my family can't get ahold of them.
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Bunker Punks Tour!
Seeing as how I was inducted into the Bunker Punks community, I have to like participate in their shit. I mean shenanigans. I mean cool stuff. So I'm going to answer the following questions for the #bunkerpunkstour. I seriously don't know what I'm doing so bear with me.
What is your most prized possession?
Film negatives from when my oldest 2 children were little. Because that was back in the day before digital cameras and websites that can hold every picture you've ever taken on your digital devices. Those negatives are all I have if I lost the actual printed pictures. Other than my children of course (I'm not that kind of psycho!), if I had the choice to save ONE thing if my house were on fire or flooding, it would be those negatives.
How do you unwind after a long day?
Well it depends what happened in that long day. Sometimes all I need is junk food, my blanket and couch and a good Hallmark channel movie. Other times I need all of that plus beer or wine or beer AND wine. I have insomnia most nights though. That hinders my unwinding a great deal. So I stalk you people who are reading this on fb all night long. I've got my eye on you!
What is one song that has followed you throughout your whole life?
Are y'all ready for this? Do you want to know what my real name is? This is a sappy, sentimental answer I'm going to give. It's Rosanna. See where I'm going? I was born in 1982. That same year Toto came out with their album Rosanna. It has the song Rosanna on it. My mom claims she did not name me Rosanna because of that album and song even though it came out the same year. Riiiiight. Sure mom. She claims she wanted to name me Heather but my aunt stole the name for my cousin the year before. I am soooo not a Heather! Here's the sappy, sentimental part: my daddy was so happy and proud when I was born he went out and bought the Rosanna album. An actual record. You know, as in not a cassette tape, not a cd, not an iTunes song. A record. My name's sake. My dad is a sentimental ball of feels. I am Rosanna. Everyone sings it to me on my birthday. Wait for it........................... My birthday is July 4th. OMG! (But that's a different story.)
If you could give one piece of advice to new bloggers, what would it be?
Be yourself. Nobody likes a faker. Personally, I don't want to read your blog if all you talk about is what's "trending". I want to read real, from your heart stuff. I don't care if Calvin Klein had Justin Beiber's dick enhanced in their underwear ads. I want to know what you are feeling.
Now that you're famous we need a quote from you...
When life gives you lemons, squeeze them into the eyes of the people who gave them to you! (For the record I've been saying that for years and years, long before social media, and then I said it on Facefuck one day and now a lot of people say it. Just know I said it first!) Who stole my saying from me? Huh? It was YOU wasn't it?!?!
What is your most prized possession?
Film negatives from when my oldest 2 children were little. Because that was back in the day before digital cameras and websites that can hold every picture you've ever taken on your digital devices. Those negatives are all I have if I lost the actual printed pictures. Other than my children of course (I'm not that kind of psycho!), if I had the choice to save ONE thing if my house were on fire or flooding, it would be those negatives.
How do you unwind after a long day?
Well it depends what happened in that long day. Sometimes all I need is junk food, my blanket and couch and a good Hallmark channel movie. Other times I need all of that plus beer or wine or beer AND wine. I have insomnia most nights though. That hinders my unwinding a great deal. So I stalk you people who are reading this on fb all night long. I've got my eye on you!
What is one song that has followed you throughout your whole life?
Are y'all ready for this? Do you want to know what my real name is? This is a sappy, sentimental answer I'm going to give. It's Rosanna. See where I'm going? I was born in 1982. That same year Toto came out with their album Rosanna. It has the song Rosanna on it. My mom claims she did not name me Rosanna because of that album and song even though it came out the same year. Riiiiight. Sure mom. She claims she wanted to name me Heather but my aunt stole the name for my cousin the year before. I am soooo not a Heather! Here's the sappy, sentimental part: my daddy was so happy and proud when I was born he went out and bought the Rosanna album. An actual record. You know, as in not a cassette tape, not a cd, not an iTunes song. A record. My name's sake. My dad is a sentimental ball of feels. I am Rosanna. Everyone sings it to me on my birthday. Wait for it........................... My birthday is July 4th. OMG! (But that's a different story.)
If you could give one piece of advice to new bloggers, what would it be?
Be yourself. Nobody likes a faker. Personally, I don't want to read your blog if all you talk about is what's "trending". I want to read real, from your heart stuff. I don't care if Calvin Klein had Justin Beiber's dick enhanced in their underwear ads. I want to know what you are feeling.
Now that you're famous we need a quote from you...
When life gives you lemons, squeeze them into the eyes of the people who gave them to you! (For the record I've been saying that for years and years, long before social media, and then I said it on Facefuck one day and now a lot of people say it. Just know I said it first!) Who stole my saying from me? Huh? It was YOU wasn't it?!?!
Thyroid Cancer Can Suck It!
I never thought it would happen to me. Nobody does. Then one day your thyroid surgeon's office calls to tell you that yes, indeed, you had cancer. But let me start at the beginning. It's important because I didn't pay attention to the signs and maybe if I tell my story, I can help someone else.
I was 18 when I got pregnant with my first child. She was planned. And I'm glad I had her when I did. I had just turned 19 two weeks before her birth. I gained a lot of weight with that pregnancy though. A LOT. I chalked it up to the fact that I ate everything all of the time once I got past morning sickness in my 5th month. I'm not entirely sure how much I weighed after she was born but I never did fit back into my pre-pregnancy clothes. I was huge. By the time she was a year old I was even bigger. My mom thought something was very wrong. At the time she was in nursing school and she read and researched EVERYTHING. So I knew that she knew something was wrong. So I went to the doctor.
I weighed 202 pounds. You know what the asshole told me? I needed to go on Weight Watchers like his wife and lose weight because I was too fat. He also told me I needed to lay off chocolate and junk food because I had pimples. What? I don't eat a whole lot of junk food. And who the hell are you to tell me I HAVE to go on Weight Watchers? He was extremely rude. I walked out of his office that day not wanting to ever see another doctor again. I was embarrassed, upset, wondering why he was such a jerk.
I managed to get my weight down to 195 and I got stuck there. A plateau. Then I got pregnant with baby number two. After I had him I lost a significant amount of weight but not enough. I ignored my exhaustion. I associated it with the fact that my son didn't sleep for the first 16 months of his life (but that's another story). I started getting fatter again. We moved 900 miles away when baby number 2 was 6 months old and my oldest was 3 years old. I still ignored the exhaustion. I ignored the brain fog. I fought through not wanting to get up and took care of my children anyway. I got depressed. I got suicidal. I got pregnant.
We were 900 miles away from home, only my sister in law and her friends to lean on, I was home sick, scared, sick as a dog, and pregnant with a 3rd baby we couldn't afford. I wanted to die. And still I didn't know I had cancer. We moved back home 6 months after moving away. I was happier, no longer suicidal because I was home. But I was still sick.
Things seemed ok after I had baby number three. I lost over 40 pounds because during the last month of pregnancy I had 8 gall stones and severe pain and I couldn't eat. Water made my gall bladder hurt. It put me into early labor but they stopped it. I was sent home to live on Gatorade and Percocet until I had the baby. Then I could think about getting my gall bladder out. So was that it? All that time, being so sick and tired, was it my gall bladder?
No. It wasn't. My thyroid was slowly growing a tumor. And then I found myself pregnant with baby number 4 because I was the stupidest 20-something year old on the face of this earth. But I thank God every day for being pregnant with that baby. Why? Because that's when my mother saw it. The huge protrusion sticking out of my neck. From my throat area to be exact. She freaked the hell out. She freaked me the hell out. She said I needed to get my thyroid tested immediately.
My OBGYN ran a thyroid work up. All came back normal. I stopped thinking about it. I was focused on the 3 kids I had and the baby on the way.
After he was born I got very ill. I was delirious most of the time that I was awake. That's WHEN I was awake. It got to the point everyone thought I had narcolepsy. I'd just randomly fall asleep. And they couldn't get me to wake up. Eventually I just slept all the time. I couldn't take care of my kids. My sister lived upstairs from me and she and her boyfriend used to sleep downstairs because I wouldn't wake up for the babies. My son Cooper was 2 years old then and he used to be awake in the middle of the night all the time for no reason. He's now my early riser at 9 years old. So my sister and her boyfriend used to stay awake with him because I couldn't.
Finally my mother convinced me to go to an endocrinologist. The very day I saw him he was concerned immediately. He felt the huge lump in my throat. He poked, prodded, and felt around some more. He did a needle biopsy right there in his office and sent me for blood work. The blood work came back normal. Again, as it did a year prior. The biopsy results came back negative for cancer. What a massively huge relief right? Wrong.
They told me, after an ultrasound that it was too big to leave in there, cancerous or not. So on February 19, 2008 I had the left half of my thyroid removed along with the golf ball sized tumor. No. Scratch that. It was the size of a baseball. The tumor was absolutely huge. It had invaded one single little blood cell. But it wasn't cancer according the first biopsy.
Then I got the phone call 2 weeks later. "I'm sorry to inform you, but the biopsy results came back and you had cancer." I froze. No I didn't! It was benign. No. It wasn't. I indeed had a rare form of thyroid cancer. They told me it was noninvasive (in other words it was contained to just my thyroid) follicular thyroid cancer. My mom was there. She hugged me so tight and cried. I remember thinking, what's the big deal? They got it all out. They scheduled me to have the right half of my thyroid removed 2 months later.
I found out afterward that my thyroid was actually dead. As in it was decaying inside me and would have started poisoning me. But my blood work was still normal. How can a dead, decaying thyroid still function normally? And how could the first lab have made such a gross error in diagnosing my cancer? All questions to this day I don't have an answer for. I never asked why the first lab was wrong. I had too much to deal with on my plate already. And the doctors didn't know why my thyroid supposedly was functioning normally while also being dead. Decaying. That's disgusting! No wonder I was so sick all those years.
I was supposed to go for a radioactive iodine treatment after the complete removal of my thyroid to kill any possible thyroid cells that may be left in me. But the same hospital that told me I didn't have thyroid cancer screwed that up as well and I never got it done. I'm glad for that though. But that's another story that will take time to write about.
I have to go to my oncologist-endocrin doctor every 6 months for blood work and neck ultrasounds to make sure I remain cancer free, especially since I never got radiation therapy. It's been over a year since I last went. BUT in May of 2014 I had a third thyroid surgery. An ultrasound tech who decided to go higher up my neck with that little probe thingy (I think that's the technical term for it haha) found a piece of thyroid tissue that was missed from the previous 2 surgeries 6 years before. They again wanted me to do radioactive iodine treatment to kill it and not have surgery because the piece of thyroid was so small. I said no, I'll go for surgery. Don't you think if my thyroid was dead and decaying 6 years ago, that any piece left is also dead and decaying? Also, I don't want radiation unless I'm going to die RIGHT NOW without it. So they went in and took out the itty bitty piece of thyroid. No radioactive iodine for me! No. Radiation almost always causes other cancers 5, 10, 20 years down the road for people. If I can live my life without it and live for a very long time and not get cancer from cancer treatments, then that's the route I choose. It's the route I chose.
I'm not completely healthy today. I just don't have cancer anymore. Without a functioning thyroid I've got a multitude of side effects I have to deal with from the thyroid replacement medication. But if I don't take the medicine I will get sick. And I WILL die. Slowly, painfully, and very sickly. Insomnia, weight fluctuation, extreme body temperature changes every 5 minutes, exhaustion, depression, anxiety (just to name a few) are side effects I'll take any day over death. I'll deal with them all because it means I'm still alive. I'm here to take care of my children and watch them grow up.
Since the cancer, I've had a 5th baby. She is the product of thyroid medication and birth control medication clashing with each other. Something even the doctors didn't know could happen. I'm glad the medicines clashed. I love my Toddler Tyrant! That was another journey, for another blog post though.
I'll end with this: Fuck Cancer! Fuck you! I fought you and I won!
I was 18 when I got pregnant with my first child. She was planned. And I'm glad I had her when I did. I had just turned 19 two weeks before her birth. I gained a lot of weight with that pregnancy though. A LOT. I chalked it up to the fact that I ate everything all of the time once I got past morning sickness in my 5th month. I'm not entirely sure how much I weighed after she was born but I never did fit back into my pre-pregnancy clothes. I was huge. By the time she was a year old I was even bigger. My mom thought something was very wrong. At the time she was in nursing school and she read and researched EVERYTHING. So I knew that she knew something was wrong. So I went to the doctor.
I weighed 202 pounds. You know what the asshole told me? I needed to go on Weight Watchers like his wife and lose weight because I was too fat. He also told me I needed to lay off chocolate and junk food because I had pimples. What? I don't eat a whole lot of junk food. And who the hell are you to tell me I HAVE to go on Weight Watchers? He was extremely rude. I walked out of his office that day not wanting to ever see another doctor again. I was embarrassed, upset, wondering why he was such a jerk.
I managed to get my weight down to 195 and I got stuck there. A plateau. Then I got pregnant with baby number two. After I had him I lost a significant amount of weight but not enough. I ignored my exhaustion. I associated it with the fact that my son didn't sleep for the first 16 months of his life (but that's another story). I started getting fatter again. We moved 900 miles away when baby number 2 was 6 months old and my oldest was 3 years old. I still ignored the exhaustion. I ignored the brain fog. I fought through not wanting to get up and took care of my children anyway. I got depressed. I got suicidal. I got pregnant.
We were 900 miles away from home, only my sister in law and her friends to lean on, I was home sick, scared, sick as a dog, and pregnant with a 3rd baby we couldn't afford. I wanted to die. And still I didn't know I had cancer. We moved back home 6 months after moving away. I was happier, no longer suicidal because I was home. But I was still sick.
Things seemed ok after I had baby number three. I lost over 40 pounds because during the last month of pregnancy I had 8 gall stones and severe pain and I couldn't eat. Water made my gall bladder hurt. It put me into early labor but they stopped it. I was sent home to live on Gatorade and Percocet until I had the baby. Then I could think about getting my gall bladder out. So was that it? All that time, being so sick and tired, was it my gall bladder?
No. It wasn't. My thyroid was slowly growing a tumor. And then I found myself pregnant with baby number 4 because I was the stupidest 20-something year old on the face of this earth. But I thank God every day for being pregnant with that baby. Why? Because that's when my mother saw it. The huge protrusion sticking out of my neck. From my throat area to be exact. She freaked the hell out. She freaked me the hell out. She said I needed to get my thyroid tested immediately.
My OBGYN ran a thyroid work up. All came back normal. I stopped thinking about it. I was focused on the 3 kids I had and the baby on the way.
After he was born I got very ill. I was delirious most of the time that I was awake. That's WHEN I was awake. It got to the point everyone thought I had narcolepsy. I'd just randomly fall asleep. And they couldn't get me to wake up. Eventually I just slept all the time. I couldn't take care of my kids. My sister lived upstairs from me and she and her boyfriend used to sleep downstairs because I wouldn't wake up for the babies. My son Cooper was 2 years old then and he used to be awake in the middle of the night all the time for no reason. He's now my early riser at 9 years old. So my sister and her boyfriend used to stay awake with him because I couldn't.
Finally my mother convinced me to go to an endocrinologist. The very day I saw him he was concerned immediately. He felt the huge lump in my throat. He poked, prodded, and felt around some more. He did a needle biopsy right there in his office and sent me for blood work. The blood work came back normal. Again, as it did a year prior. The biopsy results came back negative for cancer. What a massively huge relief right? Wrong.
They told me, after an ultrasound that it was too big to leave in there, cancerous or not. So on February 19, 2008 I had the left half of my thyroid removed along with the golf ball sized tumor. No. Scratch that. It was the size of a baseball. The tumor was absolutely huge. It had invaded one single little blood cell. But it wasn't cancer according the first biopsy.
Then I got the phone call 2 weeks later. "I'm sorry to inform you, but the biopsy results came back and you had cancer." I froze. No I didn't! It was benign. No. It wasn't. I indeed had a rare form of thyroid cancer. They told me it was noninvasive (in other words it was contained to just my thyroid) follicular thyroid cancer. My mom was there. She hugged me so tight and cried. I remember thinking, what's the big deal? They got it all out. They scheduled me to have the right half of my thyroid removed 2 months later.
I found out afterward that my thyroid was actually dead. As in it was decaying inside me and would have started poisoning me. But my blood work was still normal. How can a dead, decaying thyroid still function normally? And how could the first lab have made such a gross error in diagnosing my cancer? All questions to this day I don't have an answer for. I never asked why the first lab was wrong. I had too much to deal with on my plate already. And the doctors didn't know why my thyroid supposedly was functioning normally while also being dead. Decaying. That's disgusting! No wonder I was so sick all those years.
I was supposed to go for a radioactive iodine treatment after the complete removal of my thyroid to kill any possible thyroid cells that may be left in me. But the same hospital that told me I didn't have thyroid cancer screwed that up as well and I never got it done. I'm glad for that though. But that's another story that will take time to write about.
I have to go to my oncologist-endocrin doctor every 6 months for blood work and neck ultrasounds to make sure I remain cancer free, especially since I never got radiation therapy. It's been over a year since I last went. BUT in May of 2014 I had a third thyroid surgery. An ultrasound tech who decided to go higher up my neck with that little probe thingy (I think that's the technical term for it haha) found a piece of thyroid tissue that was missed from the previous 2 surgeries 6 years before. They again wanted me to do radioactive iodine treatment to kill it and not have surgery because the piece of thyroid was so small. I said no, I'll go for surgery. Don't you think if my thyroid was dead and decaying 6 years ago, that any piece left is also dead and decaying? Also, I don't want radiation unless I'm going to die RIGHT NOW without it. So they went in and took out the itty bitty piece of thyroid. No radioactive iodine for me! No. Radiation almost always causes other cancers 5, 10, 20 years down the road for people. If I can live my life without it and live for a very long time and not get cancer from cancer treatments, then that's the route I choose. It's the route I chose.
I'm not completely healthy today. I just don't have cancer anymore. Without a functioning thyroid I've got a multitude of side effects I have to deal with from the thyroid replacement medication. But if I don't take the medicine I will get sick. And I WILL die. Slowly, painfully, and very sickly. Insomnia, weight fluctuation, extreme body temperature changes every 5 minutes, exhaustion, depression, anxiety (just to name a few) are side effects I'll take any day over death. I'll deal with them all because it means I'm still alive. I'm here to take care of my children and watch them grow up.
Since the cancer, I've had a 5th baby. She is the product of thyroid medication and birth control medication clashing with each other. Something even the doctors didn't know could happen. I'm glad the medicines clashed. I love my Toddler Tyrant! That was another journey, for another blog post though.
I'll end with this: Fuck Cancer! Fuck you! I fought you and I won!
Friday, January 9, 2015
It's Officially Official Now!
It's become officially official, if the title didn't clue you in already. June will be the last month we reside in this big, beautiful house we've called home for the past 4 years. Last night when the hubs and I got home from bowling my mom asked me if we were going for it and I officially told her yes!
The happiest smile, one I have not seen on my mom in a long time took over her entire face. There was a twinkle in her eye! I knew buying a big house and living all alone in it was only going to be great for so long for her. I knew she'd get lonely, and even miss us. She even said she missed hearing us opening presents Christmas morning while she got ready for work. She said she even missed hearing Scot (my husband) dictating to the boys "how things were going to happen", before they dove head first into an unwrapping shark-like frenzy. That actually made me want to cry.
I miss my mom. She moved out 5 months ago. She only lives, literally 4 minutes away. But I still miss her. I miss her coming home from work and plopping on the couch next to me and telling me about her frustrating day or about a beloved patient who finally passed away. I miss knocking on her bedroom door and saying "Hey, wanna play Scrabble?". Now if I want to play Scrabble or cribbage I have to call her and drive there or her here. She's back working full time and she's exhausted so mostly she stays home now. And I'm busy with my family in the evenings with dinner, homework, and all the other things you do as a parent with your kids so I can't just jump in my van and go see my mom.
I really miss my mom. My mom hugged me so tight when I got the phone call that I indeed had cancer. My mom drove me around when I didn't have a license or a car. My mom rented a house with my family and I because she knew we couldn't afford it on our own. My mom worked upwards of 3 jobs, no sleep, AND homeschooled us when my siblings and I were young, just to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. My mom watched my first born literally tear her way into this world. My mom, even though she was already over extended financially living with us, paid a portion of my younger sisters rent every month for 3 years because she suddenly found herself a single mother with 2 young girls and got no help from her now ex-husband. My sister has found the best man ever though, but that's another story. A very long story. My mom suffered great illness, both physically and mentally my entire life, but she's never once given up on life or her kids. She would give you her last breath if it meant saving yours. My mom is a homecare hospice nurse. She sees life and death right before her very eyes almost daily. That takes some kind of strength. Strength I could never possess. My mom has made me get out of bed when I just wanted to give up.
I could write a book of all the things my mom is. All the things I'm not. All the things she did and still does for me that she didn't/doesn't have to do, but because she loves me unconditionally, she did/does them anyway. Nothing I could ever say or do can possibly express the love, gratitude and most sincere thanks I have for the mother I've been given to walk this thing called life with that could properly do what I feel and what I wish I could say any justice.
Now I've gone and made myself cry! It's a good thing I can type with blurry vision. I couldn't ask for a better mom than mine.
This blog post was originally supposed to be about our big move and all the changes it will bring for my family but it turned out my heart needed to talk about my mom. One of the most amazing, wonderful, best people to ever grace this earth. And that's ok with me!
The happiest smile, one I have not seen on my mom in a long time took over her entire face. There was a twinkle in her eye! I knew buying a big house and living all alone in it was only going to be great for so long for her. I knew she'd get lonely, and even miss us. She even said she missed hearing us opening presents Christmas morning while she got ready for work. She said she even missed hearing Scot (my husband) dictating to the boys "how things were going to happen", before they dove head first into an unwrapping shark-like frenzy. That actually made me want to cry.
I miss my mom. She moved out 5 months ago. She only lives, literally 4 minutes away. But I still miss her. I miss her coming home from work and plopping on the couch next to me and telling me about her frustrating day or about a beloved patient who finally passed away. I miss knocking on her bedroom door and saying "Hey, wanna play Scrabble?". Now if I want to play Scrabble or cribbage I have to call her and drive there or her here. She's back working full time and she's exhausted so mostly she stays home now. And I'm busy with my family in the evenings with dinner, homework, and all the other things you do as a parent with your kids so I can't just jump in my van and go see my mom.
I really miss my mom. My mom hugged me so tight when I got the phone call that I indeed had cancer. My mom drove me around when I didn't have a license or a car. My mom rented a house with my family and I because she knew we couldn't afford it on our own. My mom worked upwards of 3 jobs, no sleep, AND homeschooled us when my siblings and I were young, just to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. My mom watched my first born literally tear her way into this world. My mom, even though she was already over extended financially living with us, paid a portion of my younger sisters rent every month for 3 years because she suddenly found herself a single mother with 2 young girls and got no help from her now ex-husband. My sister has found the best man ever though, but that's another story. A very long story. My mom suffered great illness, both physically and mentally my entire life, but she's never once given up on life or her kids. She would give you her last breath if it meant saving yours. My mom is a homecare hospice nurse. She sees life and death right before her very eyes almost daily. That takes some kind of strength. Strength I could never possess. My mom has made me get out of bed when I just wanted to give up.
I could write a book of all the things my mom is. All the things I'm not. All the things she did and still does for me that she didn't/doesn't have to do, but because she loves me unconditionally, she did/does them anyway. Nothing I could ever say or do can possibly express the love, gratitude and most sincere thanks I have for the mother I've been given to walk this thing called life with that could properly do what I feel and what I wish I could say any justice.
Now I've gone and made myself cry! It's a good thing I can type with blurry vision. I couldn't ask for a better mom than mine.
This blog post was originally supposed to be about our big move and all the changes it will bring for my family but it turned out my heart needed to talk about my mom. One of the most amazing, wonderful, best people to ever grace this earth. And that's ok with me!
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Ramblings of My Foggy Mind
So. Get used to that word. I tend to start a lot of things with it. Even when I talk out loud because I type exactly the way I speak. Anyway (I use this word a lot too), I'm sitting here drinking yesterday's reheated coffee cuz I forgot I used it all yesterday. You'd think at my age and the amount of coffee I drink, I'd learn to buy 2 big cans of coffee every week, not just one.
You know that Ultimate Proposal some of you read about? It's happening. I left hubby be to think about it in his own way. I didn't want to nag him (let's face it, we all nag each other sometimes and we shouldn't) about it even though I was so hyped up that I already was planning colors to paint all the rooms and I didn't yet know if Scot was going to go for it. Somewhere deep down I knew he would. The financial aspects were far greater than any downfall to moving. In fact, it's financial security. If one of my kids needs a new pair of sneakers (which with my 3 sons is like every other week), I can go buy the damn sneakers. I don't have to look at my checking account and think 'do I get gas in my van so I can take my daughter back and forth to color guard practice this week or do I ask her to find rides so I can buy a pair of sneakers for her brother' because I'll be able to get gas AND buy sneakers. I wont stress out, hubby wont stress out and my brother (who lives with us and will move with us) wont stress out about running out of heating oil and having to go without heat and hot water for a couple weeks because we have to pay the rent first or get oil and risk the landlord evicting us because we ask him to hold the check late too often. We're stressed, we're exhausted. We don't want that anymore. Who does?
When Scot and brother go away on road trips for work I'll have my mom right downstairs (it's a plus that she's a nurse) if I need help with the kids. Right now my oldest son (he'll be 11 February 2nd) is very tough. I'm not sure if he's going through puberty or what but he's been getting kind of violent, very mean and nasty too. Even toward hubby and if you knew my hubby you'd wonder why this boy of ours is still alive with his terrible attitude and behaviour lately! But he'll have his own room when we move. He wont have to put up with 2 little brothers making a mess or touching his stuff. He'll have his own little sanctuary to get away from his big, loud family if he wants or needs to. And then there's my 3 year old girl Lillie. You know that whole "terrible two's" thing and "horrible three's", yadda yadda.... Well my older 4 kids didn't get that. They were very great (messy but what kid isn't) toddlers. I laughed at the terrible two's. And then Lillie came along. It started when she was 18 months old. And it gets worse with each passing day, week, month, year. I kind of understand why some people snap and do bad things. I would NEVER, but I kind of understand it.
When you have your 3 year old screaming in your face, telling you NO, hitting, kicking, biting you, you can totally lose your cool! I've had to walk away, go outside and smoke a cigarette while Lillie pounded on the glass door screaming and crying and wanting me to come back in but I wouldn't. Not until I was calm enough to be as patient as possible with her. I never thought I'd say this, but, as a mother, I'm 100% completely at loss as to what to do with this 3 year old of mine most days. I can't spank her. I wont spank her. She would just hit back anyway. Time out chairs don't work; I'd have to strap her to it and sit there to make sure she didn't topple it over on herself. So there's that.
We're going to stick it out in this amazing house we live in for 6 months though. I'm going to miss it more than a crack head needing their next fix. But I have to put my family and our financial crisis first. It wont do my kids any good to be homeless if we can't keep paying to live in this big amazing house. So we have rooms to build, floors to put in, walls to paint before we can make the big move. And that's ok. We can do it all ourselves. We are quite the handy and crafty family. I may need lots of coffee and I'm going to be a total wine whore through the process, until we're officially settled in and secure, but we're going to make it! *giant weight lifted*
You know that Ultimate Proposal some of you read about? It's happening. I left hubby be to think about it in his own way. I didn't want to nag him (let's face it, we all nag each other sometimes and we shouldn't) about it even though I was so hyped up that I already was planning colors to paint all the rooms and I didn't yet know if Scot was going to go for it. Somewhere deep down I knew he would. The financial aspects were far greater than any downfall to moving. In fact, it's financial security. If one of my kids needs a new pair of sneakers (which with my 3 sons is like every other week), I can go buy the damn sneakers. I don't have to look at my checking account and think 'do I get gas in my van so I can take my daughter back and forth to color guard practice this week or do I ask her to find rides so I can buy a pair of sneakers for her brother' because I'll be able to get gas AND buy sneakers. I wont stress out, hubby wont stress out and my brother (who lives with us and will move with us) wont stress out about running out of heating oil and having to go without heat and hot water for a couple weeks because we have to pay the rent first or get oil and risk the landlord evicting us because we ask him to hold the check late too often. We're stressed, we're exhausted. We don't want that anymore. Who does?
When Scot and brother go away on road trips for work I'll have my mom right downstairs (it's a plus that she's a nurse) if I need help with the kids. Right now my oldest son (he'll be 11 February 2nd) is very tough. I'm not sure if he's going through puberty or what but he's been getting kind of violent, very mean and nasty too. Even toward hubby and if you knew my hubby you'd wonder why this boy of ours is still alive with his terrible attitude and behaviour lately! But he'll have his own room when we move. He wont have to put up with 2 little brothers making a mess or touching his stuff. He'll have his own little sanctuary to get away from his big, loud family if he wants or needs to. And then there's my 3 year old girl Lillie. You know that whole "terrible two's" thing and "horrible three's", yadda yadda.... Well my older 4 kids didn't get that. They were very great (messy but what kid isn't) toddlers. I laughed at the terrible two's. And then Lillie came along. It started when she was 18 months old. And it gets worse with each passing day, week, month, year. I kind of understand why some people snap and do bad things. I would NEVER, but I kind of understand it.
When you have your 3 year old screaming in your face, telling you NO, hitting, kicking, biting you, you can totally lose your cool! I've had to walk away, go outside and smoke a cigarette while Lillie pounded on the glass door screaming and crying and wanting me to come back in but I wouldn't. Not until I was calm enough to be as patient as possible with her. I never thought I'd say this, but, as a mother, I'm 100% completely at loss as to what to do with this 3 year old of mine most days. I can't spank her. I wont spank her. She would just hit back anyway. Time out chairs don't work; I'd have to strap her to it and sit there to make sure she didn't topple it over on herself. So there's that.
We're going to stick it out in this amazing house we live in for 6 months though. I'm going to miss it more than a crack head needing their next fix. But I have to put my family and our financial crisis first. It wont do my kids any good to be homeless if we can't keep paying to live in this big amazing house. So we have rooms to build, floors to put in, walls to paint before we can make the big move. And that's ok. We can do it all ourselves. We are quite the handy and crafty family. I may need lots of coffee and I'm going to be a total wine whore through the process, until we're officially settled in and secure, but we're going to make it! *giant weight lifted*
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)