It has been a long time since I've posted on this old blog.
The last time I posted we had just had a wonderful weekend up at the lake house during Labor Day weekend.
We had our good friends Janette & Ken, Quentin, Forest and Spencer up from Illinois. My good friend Jonel, and our dear, sweet neighbors, Kim & Pete.
Just before we left for that trip I started to have some unusual bleeding. I was concerned about this, but bleeding stopped and the doc tested my blood to make sure I hadn't lost that much blood (which I didn't) and felt comfortable letting me go to the lake house and promised I would go to an ER if I started to bleed again over the weekend. At the time I really thought I had some kind of bleeding fibroid and it would have to be removed.
When I got back home, my doc had me to an ultrasound. This was the beginning of a fast and crazy ride, one which I finally feel like I know how to ride - and more importantly is not moving at warp speed!
The basics are that I was diagnosed with Leiomyosarcoma (a soft muscle cancer). Mine started as large tumor in my bladder - but it can show up many places (where ever there is soft muscle. The treatment for this was to have my bladder replaced with a neobladder (made out of part of my small intestine) and a full hysterectomy.
The day after I received this diagnosis, we had a pre-planned photo shoot on the grounds of the Walker Art Center. We had already told the kids as they were so surprised to see Slade home from work on a Friday and wanted to know why. I think we all did really well, knowing how unknown the world seemed to us at the time. We didn't understand anything about this rare cancer, but couldn't think about it all the time. So, this photo shoot gave us a bit of a relief.
If this is new news for you, sorry you had to hear it this way. But if you go to the CaringBridge site that my sister set up - you can get more details. I want to use the CaringBridge to just talk about the status of my LMS (a shorter version of Leiomyosarcoma). It serves as a great tool for me to see the progress and where my LMS has taken me.
CaringBridge site: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/michymama
Now I feel like I must get back to posting on this blog instead of CaringBridge. I will update every three months when I have scans done, and if any health issues come up.
My parents have been here almost NINE WEEKS. It has been truly wonderful to have them here, to live this close and come over every morning, help make breakfast, do laundry, read the newspaper with, vacuum the floors, bring in the mail, have tea with, drive me and the kids where ever we need to go, have dinner with us, help put kids to bed, hem curtains, many, many curtains! This is and much more! It will be hard to say goodbye to them in TWO DAYS!
We had a photo shoot while my parents were here - we had such a good time on the one we did in September and I swore that I would hire her again when any relatives came into town. We had plans to have all of Slade's family come in for Christmas this year, and to celebrate Ann's (Slade's mom) 80th birthday (on 12/22). Well the plans changed, but family still came into town so I booked the shoot.
We were also able to get Olive (our sweet Goldendoodle) in the photo as well.
While we are sad to see my parents leave, we are all ready to take life back over. The kids will have to start getting back into the routine of helping out around the house, and I will have to start getting back into my routines as well. I look forward to driving the kids to school. I don't know why, I guess because we have some of the funniest conversations in the car.
My dad told me that getting cancer (for him) has many times been a positive experience. I know what he means. There is so much good that comes from it. I wouldn't tell anyone to try it, but there are some redeeming qualities.
We only have one more day to spend with Clip Clop and Papa - so I better go get some sleep so we can get in the last activities that any of us feel we must do!
