Ok people, did I melt your hearts like Zac Efron?
Enter here: morphine incident. I wake up the next morning....scratching my head, was it all a dream? Nope, I still have a bum hip, damn, I guess I still have cancer, damn, and now I'm going to vomit. I don't know about you, but whoever said it is comfortable (not that throwing up is by any means comfortable) to throw up while sitting in bed, and I'm pretty sure that was my Mom who said that, is WRONG. So I felt the need to keep limping to the bathroom in major pain for my 'episodes.' Well, that got me far. How far? On the floor far, with a back spasm so intense I couldn't even cry. Good thing I haven't showered since yesterday. The series of events that follow are so beyond ridiculous that you needed to be there.
I'm on the floor, my dad is now trying to shimmy pants on me while my mother (calmly, as always) calls 911. Moments later a couple of police officers arrive with the volunteer rescue squad. The volunteers consisted of a 17 year old, and 2 or 3 ( can't remember, I was a little preoccupied) large, old and sweaty men. !@#$ After several LONG moments, they figure out how to get me downstairs....on a soft stretcher. FYI, I literally CANNOT move. Now I am rolled up like a hot dog in a stretcher type thing, and these guys are going to carry me downstairs??? WHAT?!? Someone just knock me out at this point.
We begin the decent downstairs, as I am cursing loudly in pain, "!@$#, #%@$, #$@%!" Ummmm, am I supposed to be looking at the floor? Ummmm, excuse me, should my face be that close to the floor? I'm spinning like a rotisserie chicken, I feel safe.
Many painful minutes later, I am now on the ambulance. Wow, remind me to NEVER call 911 again. EVER. As we speed away, fat sweaty guy starts asking questions. Oh, they put the sirens on for me, how lucky am I?! FSG: "What happened?" Me: "I was sick from the morphine and got a back spasm. I have breast cancer. FSG: "How long have you had it?" Me: "Uh, I was diagnosed yesterday." AWKWARD. Last thing I remember from the ambulance ride; "Mom, don't forget to call my principal and tell him I'm not coming in today."
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Where do I start?
I don't even know what I am doing here, but that is the least of my problems. I have been on this 'journey' for 2 years and 2 months. I was diagnosed with stage IV metastatic breast cancer at the age of 26. That blows, right? It's even shittier when you say it out loud. Dumb things usually happen to me often but this is a pretty twisted story.
I started to feel pain in my hip in April/May of 2008, it got to the point where I was limping pretty badly. One night, as my sister dropped me off after getting ice cream (yum!), I tripped up the front steps (oh, I moved back in with my parents a year earlier, namaste mom and dad) and fell to the ground in pain I cannot even describe. Waiting for my sister to, I don't know, maybe yell out the car window, "Are you OK?", I realize she has already driven away. Naturally.
Luckily, our next door neighbor is a physical therapist and came over and checked out my hip. His suggestion was to see a sports medicine doctor. Oh, and I got a SWEET old lady cane to walk with. Who wouldn't want to hang out with me?
After seeing the doctor and getting test after test; x-rays, MRIs, bone scans with radioactive injections one after another ( I haven't turned into the Hulk yet), they recommended I see an oncologist. An oncologist?!? Isn't that a cancer doctor?!?
Sitting in the waiting room of the oncologist's office for the first time was a terrifying moment. I was with my parents of course but sitting across from 'cancer patients' in wheelchairs with no hair, looking years beyond their real ages, sucked. I was some 26 year old chick with a bum hip, that I joked about ALL the time. So the first doctor I saw, HOT and YOUNG, was very reassuring and promised we would figure out what was wrong. Don't get your hopes up, he's married with kids. He gave me a breast exam, awkward. It goes something like this: Dr: "Did you know you had this lump in your breast?" Me: "Yeah, I've had it for about 2 years. The doctors in DELAWARE (dumbest state ever, where I lived for 3 years) told me it was nothing to worry about, a fibroid cyst." Dr: long pause "Oh."
Well, that was reassuring. I think at that moment I 'knew', but decided to ignore my intuition.
I went for a mammogram, ultrasound, and a biopsy, which didn't exactly go smoothly, but talking about radiation, chemo and the like, is way more fun than describing my allergic reaction to medication during a biopsy. Oh, and did I mention I almost passed out during my second mammogram? Yeah...... The whole time I am being transported in a wheelchair, do you know how terrifying it is to trust someone to push you in one of those? I rather walk with my cane, thank you.
So, it is 7:20am on June 4th, 2008. I am meeting with the oncologist (the HOT one) for my results. I am with my parents, obviously, and my cool old lady cane. Well, Carla, you have breast cancer and it has spread to your bones. You have a giant sized (10cm) tumor on steroids in your left breast. My world goes black and all I can think is W T F?!?!?!?!?! Moments later I meet MY doctor, the doctor that totally rocks my world. She is taking my case, because basically she's the shit. I pretty much don't remember anything after this point, I was holding back tears trying to be all stoic and strong, which I look back at now and think, what an idiot?, cry it out girl! Dr. says, go home with some morphine for the pain and rest. Sure, rest? I can totally go home and rest in bed.
The hardest thing at this point was to tell my sister, who I kind of figured already knew, but I needed to say it out loud.......that sucked. More tears, blah shit blah.....swallow morphine and sleep.
Thanks for the free therapy session! Can't wait to see what story comes next...perhaps the story about vomiting from the morphine and being hauled out of my house in a stretcher....truth.
I started to feel pain in my hip in April/May of 2008, it got to the point where I was limping pretty badly. One night, as my sister dropped me off after getting ice cream (yum!), I tripped up the front steps (oh, I moved back in with my parents a year earlier, namaste mom and dad) and fell to the ground in pain I cannot even describe. Waiting for my sister to, I don't know, maybe yell out the car window, "Are you OK?", I realize she has already driven away. Naturally.
Luckily, our next door neighbor is a physical therapist and came over and checked out my hip. His suggestion was to see a sports medicine doctor. Oh, and I got a SWEET old lady cane to walk with. Who wouldn't want to hang out with me?
After seeing the doctor and getting test after test; x-rays, MRIs, bone scans with radioactive injections one after another ( I haven't turned into the Hulk yet), they recommended I see an oncologist. An oncologist?!? Isn't that a cancer doctor?!?
Sitting in the waiting room of the oncologist's office for the first time was a terrifying moment. I was with my parents of course but sitting across from 'cancer patients' in wheelchairs with no hair, looking years beyond their real ages, sucked. I was some 26 year old chick with a bum hip, that I joked about ALL the time. So the first doctor I saw, HOT and YOUNG, was very reassuring and promised we would figure out what was wrong. Don't get your hopes up, he's married with kids. He gave me a breast exam, awkward. It goes something like this: Dr: "Did you know you had this lump in your breast?" Me: "Yeah, I've had it for about 2 years. The doctors in DELAWARE (dumbest state ever, where I lived for 3 years) told me it was nothing to worry about, a fibroid cyst." Dr: long pause "Oh."
Well, that was reassuring. I think at that moment I 'knew', but decided to ignore my intuition.
I went for a mammogram, ultrasound, and a biopsy, which didn't exactly go smoothly, but talking about radiation, chemo and the like, is way more fun than describing my allergic reaction to medication during a biopsy. Oh, and did I mention I almost passed out during my second mammogram? Yeah...... The whole time I am being transported in a wheelchair, do you know how terrifying it is to trust someone to push you in one of those? I rather walk with my cane, thank you.
So, it is 7:20am on June 4th, 2008. I am meeting with the oncologist (the HOT one) for my results. I am with my parents, obviously, and my cool old lady cane. Well, Carla, you have breast cancer and it has spread to your bones. You have a giant sized (10cm) tumor on steroids in your left breast. My world goes black and all I can think is W T F?!?!?!?!?! Moments later I meet MY doctor, the doctor that totally rocks my world. She is taking my case, because basically she's the shit. I pretty much don't remember anything after this point, I was holding back tears trying to be all stoic and strong, which I look back at now and think, what an idiot?, cry it out girl! Dr. says, go home with some morphine for the pain and rest. Sure, rest? I can totally go home and rest in bed.
The hardest thing at this point was to tell my sister, who I kind of figured already knew, but I needed to say it out loud.......that sucked. More tears, blah shit blah.....swallow morphine and sleep.
Thanks for the free therapy session! Can't wait to see what story comes next...perhaps the story about vomiting from the morphine and being hauled out of my house in a stretcher....truth.
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