June 30th, 2008

That date will forever be engrained in my mind and is a new anniversary, whether I want it to be or not...

I walked into my follow up appointment nervous but still in a relatively good mood, mainly because Mike and I had found out the Friday before that this little person I was carrying was a boy!!! I very excitedly told a very fabulous nurse our news and she gave me a hug and led me and my Mother In Law (AKA cancer companion) into our room.

Then my doctor came in the room...my ever smiley doctor wasn't so very smiley and I think the word I used to describe him was ominous. He apologized and then looked at me. I knew then and there that the next words that were going to come out of his mouth were:

YOU HAVE CANCER...

...BAM!! BANG!! POW!!! Just like a cheesey re-run of the original Batman TV show. Uhh, ok...now what?? First things first...CRY CRY CRY...followed by a "NOW WHAT?". This didn't fit into my life plan!! I really really wanted to be one of those people that just looked the doctor square in the face and calmly say "All right, let's just deal with it. What do I need to do?" But it turns out, it's just not that easy!

I quickly came to realize that no matter how prepared you THINK you are for certain things, some things you just CAN'T prep for. I used to think that if someone were ever to give me awful news about myself, my children or husband I would just pass out or get violently ill. It's actually amazing how your body protects you when it needs to. My body protected me physically but it was my mind that was a runaway train!

Nothing made sense...in an instant EVERYTHING changed. Why was this happening? Why would God bless me with this precious little baby that I was carrying and then hit me with something like this? Surely this CAN'T be happening. How am I going to tell Taylor? She's only 6, she shouldn't have to deal with this! What if I'm not around for my kids to remember me? What would people tell them about me? Would they just know me from pictures? Would Mike re-marry and would the kids eventually call her Mom? Many of you are probably thinking WOAH WOAH WOAH...why are you thinking about all that? But my life along with my future literally flashed before me and it felt like I had to prepare for it all right away!!

All of these questions and many many more went through my head in a nano second and it was all very overwhelming. I don't even remember asking any more questions, I just stared off into space and listened sort of to my doctor trying to talk to us about it all. I remember hearing Papillary Thyroid Cancer...blah blah blah...treatable...blah blah blah...surgery...blah blah blah...

Then I think we sat there for a little while longer, eventually leaving in a foggy hazy state. I got intO Deb's jeep because she wouldn't let me drive (good call) and we were on our way to her house. At least I think that's how I got home...see it's all a BLUR!!

I then had to pick up my phone and make the phone call to Mike...

As soon as he answered I was a ball of goo and a blubbering mess. Then there were those words again...CANCER. I have cancer. He said right away, Ok, we'll deal with it. We'll get through it. I love you.

Deb took the kids for the night so we could try and process this horrible day and have some time to just grieve without scaring the kids. I think we just held eachother and cried...sometimes you just need to cry...

Then I decided, OK, we need to watch a funny movie or something and without thinking I picked The Bucket List off of pay per view....HELLO STUPID!! We got about 20 minutes into that movie and I was crying again and right back to square one.

That was the WORST day of my life...