The beginning

It all started back in September 2011. I was coughing a lot but thinking it was just my asthma and lots of extra shipments at the shop. It started getting worse, and we all know I had to get that shop ready for the Holidays!!!  I went to the doctors and got on some antibiotics and Prednisone.  I had some good days to work and rest in between, and in the mix I got a new puppy two months before!!  Hello.... not enough going on?  After I was off the 1st round of antibiotics, I was still sick again, more x-rays and stronger pills. 

Heading into October, you guessed it still sick and worried about the shop.  The Holidays are how I make it year to year.  I got the shop set with the help of Maureen and Lisa...dream team!!  Then I was sent to a pulmonary specialist after the x-ray showed Pneumonia.  The specialist saw something behind the Pneumonia (which is cloudy on an x-ray), a mass resting on my bronchial tube making it hard to breath.  Then.. the tests began and lots of waiting... it was now mid-November and cat scan, scopes (though my nose to my lung) more waiting....still not sure if it is cancer or infection?  

More tests...  Bone scan next, we see something on your bones.....

Next Pet scan and an over all scan for cancer except your head....more waiting, we are in December now.  

I remained very sick, like the flu with no fever and was still waiting for test results. Then the scope again (the one I hate).  "This time we are also going to look with a camera and a biopsy going via your throat this time, then we should know something".....REALLY....

After those tests, I was out for a few hours afterwards and got pretty sick.  Went to sleep at my Mom's house across the street from mine.  Nothing like the feeling of being a little girl again when you are sick, cold washcloths on my forehead and the same pan she use to put by our head when we were little for throwing up placed next to my bed. I slept for six hours after I got home, I could hear her tiptoeing down the hall cracking the door a bit, checking to see if I was still breathing (remember I have a 4month old German Shepard puppy at my house).

When I finally woke up, my husband, Mike, and my Mom came in and sat on my bead and I asked what the doctor had said.  There was  a long pause, 'It's lung cancer that has spread to your bones....."

Time stops at that moment, thinking of nothing but that all you want is your future. Very hard news, like I was hit by a Mack truck.  I went back to sleep and faced it in the morning.  Two days late, the doctor called with the formal results over the phone.  He said he would call an oncology doctor, but it would take two weeks to get an appointment, that would be Christmas!  That's the condensed version, I want to get up to date and then I will go back and fill in more details.

Next on to my new team of care Virginia Oncology

Feeling much better at this point knowing treatment of some kind is coming soon.  A couple more tests, MRI,  remember my brain has not been scanned yet, an skeleton x-ray of my whole body and then.... one more a bone biopsy from my hip two days before Christmas.  The scopes were much worse.. No bug seen in the brain, yeah!  The bone biopsy is for later down the road. They will not operate on my lung because it is not curable with the bone situation.  Next treatment chemo, etc. to hopefully shrink the tumor that is resting on my bronchial tube so I can breath normally again to cut down on the coughing. 

Again that is the first step and then to keep it in control from there.