One year ago today...

A year ago today, our lives changed forever.  It was the day that I was diagnosed with Ovarian cancer.  I went back to my journal to read my feelings, but I could not find a journal entry.  I was shocked that I didn’t write about such a life changing event.  I had written the week before telling all about Craig’s cancer, but mine had happened so fast, that I forgot to write about it.  In the Book of Mormon when the Savior came, he asked Nephi if Samuel the Lamanite had been there, (3 Nephi 23:6-13) and if so where was the account telling about it?  Sadly Nephi realized that it had not been written.  Jesus then commanded that it be written.  So here’s my quick recap of how I found out that I had Ovarian Cancer, so it will be included in my written record.

It had been three weeks since Craig had been diagnosed with Prostate cancer.  I began noticing that I was having pain in my stomach and it felt like I never quite emptied my bladder.  On Friday, September 16, my stomach and lower abdomen started really hurting.  I was at the computer all afternoon and the pains got worse and worse.  I have a very high threshold of pain and finally around 2:00 that day I realized that I was really in pain.   I called my doctor, Amy Hawkes and told her I was in a lot of pain and was either trying to go through menopause or something was wrong.  I describe the pain to them as feeling like that of being in labor.  This same thing had happened to me 30 years earlier and when I went to get checked, I was dilated to a 7 and gave birth to Amy just a few hours later.

They got me in that afternoon but couldn’t find anything wrong.  Just to make sure they had me take a urine sample and it came back positive as having a Urinary Tract Infection.  They gave me antibiotics and a medicine that turned my urine orange – but totally helped with pain.  The doctor told me that if I was still in pain on Monday to call her back.  I took the medicine and was fine over the weekend.  However the bottle said to only take the pain meds for 2 days and so I stopped on Monday. 

I went out to breakfast on Monday with a friend and started to feel the pain come back.  By Monday afternoon I was in total pain again.  I called the doctor and they said that they wanted me to go to the American Fork Office for a CT Scan.  Now looking back I realize what a blessing it was for me to even call the doctor, because I usually don’t go very often.  The other miracle was that when she suggested a CT Scan, I never asked how much it cost, (which is NOT like me at all).  Had I known that it would cost over $3,000, I’m sure I would not have gone.

I got to the lab just a few minutes before it closed.  I was amazed at how quickly they got me in and out.  They said that they would call me that night with the results.  I wasn’t that worried, because for some reason I thought the doctor was checking for kidney stones.  I really wasn’t worried about cancer, because I had just had a papsmere and mammogram in February and everything looked fine.  Little did I know then that ovarian cancer is the most difficult to detect. That is why they call it the “silent killer.”

I went home that night and waited for the call.  It was several hours and I hadn’t heard anything, so I called the answering service and my doctor was the one on call.  She said that she hadn’t heard anything, and then as we were talking she said, “Oh, I see that I have a note in my box.  Let me review it and I will call you right back.”  I don’t remember how long it was until she returned the call, but I will never forget her words.  “Michele, this is Amy Hawkes, I don’t know how to tell you this, but you have Ovarian Cancer!” 

Those four words changed my life forever!   Cancer…before now it had just been a word, something that OTHER people got, not me.  Now all of a sudden I had a front row seat in a very undesirable class called CANCER!   Little did I know that the learning curve would be so steep and painful!

So here I sit a year later and very grateful for so many things in my life.  The most important is my knowledge that my Heavenly Father loves me and that my Savior knows my pain and has suffered for what I have gone through.   I'm extra grateful for the days, weeks and months that I have been given to be with my precious earthly family.  I'm thankful for competent doctors who have managed my health care.  And I'm grateful for the kind deeds and wonderful prayers of the hundreds of ward members, friends and family in my behalf.

Our life will never be the same, but we have come to grips with that.  We have a found a "new" kind of "normal".  We have had to accept a lot of physical as well as emotional changes that have occured in our lives.  I've given up the idea of ever having long, dark hair again and have tried to enjoy my "new look".  Thanks to everyone who have helped make this bumpy journey more endurable.  We thank you for your love, we indeed will never be the same and for that we are grateful!