10 Days for 10 Years ... Day 9

Day 9

6/27/2001

I spent yesterday cleaning and clearing all aspects of my life.

Everything that went to the hospital or chemo room I tossed.

Blankets, sweatshirts, pajama bottoms, even the smell of the cucumber and melon lotion …

they all make me nauseous.

I guess I’m trying to put all of this behind me.

I don’t think I ever will…

It’s a part of me.

As much as I have curly hair, I had cancer.

I found this passage today:

Mark 5:34

He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well.

Go in peace, and be healed of your disease"

But what do I do now?

At least with chemo there was a plan.

There was step 1, step 2, and step 3. I knew where I was and where I needed to be. Now, in remission, there’s just uncertainty and fear.

I spent the next few months dreading my two month checkups and slipping further and further into a deep depression.

The only glimmer of hope, when I wasn’t fearing a recurrence, was that my body “came back on line”.  Now all we had to pray for was that my eggs weren’t damaged.

8/10/2001

We met with Dr. Chawla today. 

Good news all around. Everything is looking good.

 I don’t have to go back for another 2 months! 

And, provided everything goes to plan, we can try to have children next year…

Kim and I spent the next few months chatting through emails.

Every now and again a phone call. 

I could hear the same terror in her voice that was in my soul. 

January 16^th, 2002 I watched Kim run the Olympic torch down a stretch of the Miracle Mile in Los Angeles. 

Yes, she ran … free and unassisted. 

She had broken loose of whatever fear had gripped her heart; the same fear I was still fighting.

That night at my mom’s house my brothers were watching Shawshank Redemption when we came back from the Olympic torch relay. 

I was still frightened.

Still scared to dream past today.

And four and half years to cancer free seemed like an eternity. 

God works in mysterious ways …

I wasn’t living. I was hiding and waiting. Praying that nothing went wrong.

It was time for me to “get busy living”, because I had fought too hard to “get busy dying”.

I stood up and breathed free air for the first time… I was free.

In February 2002, Mark and I got pregnant.

In March 2002, Kim got pregnant.

In November of 2002 I gave birth to a beautiful little boy named Jacob. 

Kim gave birth to a little girl named Emma … and her cancer came back.

Devastation and grief knocked a walking confident girl in remission down to her knees. 

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be…
I couldn't-

We lost Kim to cancer two years later.

I was pregnant with my second little boy, Dylann.

And I had just lost my chemo buddy…

There’s not a day that doesn’t go by that I don’t look at Jacob and think about Kim and Emma.  Moments of grief and guilt plague me when I think of all of the wonderful moments and amazingness of Kim that Emma is missing out on or will never know. 

Survivor’s guilt is almost as bad as living through chemo… almost.

But I know Kim wouldn’t want me to live in a world of grief; a world of regret.

So I live and I pray that one day we find a cure.

I pray that no one ever has to experience what Mark and I went through.

Then I crawl into my bed at home with my husband and three little boys and thank God for the gifts He’s given me.

I hope…

this video will take you away from the site to YouTube, but I loved
the complete clip...

10 Days for 10 Years ... Day 8

Day 8

After nine days in the hospital and three days to recoup we started round three.  I was beat down, but I was still humming SURVIVOR in my head even if my chemo buddy wasn’t there.
After round three, my counts plummeted like the Time's Square Ball on New Year’s Eve.  Painful blistering sores started popping up on the corners of my mouth, the insides of my mouth, and down my throat.  Within two days of being off the chemo pump, I couldn’t swallow water. I wasn’t even eating Jell-O because it felt like I was swallowing shards of glass.
When I walked into Dr. Chawla’s office, I was chanting: “Counts will be high! Counts will be High! COUNTS WILL BE HIGH!” willing my body’s immune system to at least kick in this round.
Thanksgiving was four days away. I was determined to watch the kick off to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade at my momma’s house eating breakfast sausage and biscuits while the turkey was cooking in the oven.
I was ninety-five pounds of determined affirmations.
But as usual, Vickie came out with my lab results, “You got to go to the hospital.”
That was it.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
I pulled my legs up to my chest, and a tear ran down my face.
“I’m not going,”  I said to her just as Dr. Chawla walked by the chemo room.  “I’m not going,” I said to him in an almost teenage-slam-the-door-what-are-ya-gonna-do-about-it tone.
All of the chemo patients sucked in air waiting for Dr. Chawla’s response.
They may have secretly been screaming, “Hell no we won’t go!"
But outwardly, they, like me, knew I wasn’t going anywhere but the hospital.
Dr. Chawla came over to my Lazyboy. I pulled my legs up tighter to my chest like I was assuming some sit-in stance.  Mark was by my side getting ready to toss me over his shoulder and fireman carry me to USC’s transplant ward if need be.  Vickie was shaking her head like she’d seen this tantrum so many times before.
“Why don’t you want to go?” Dr. Chawla said.  He bent down in front of me, so his eyes were level with mine.  There wasn’t condemnation or accusation in his eyes; he genuinely wanted to hear what absurd rational answer I could give him as to why I wasn’t going.  
“Because if you stick me in the hospital today, I won’t be out for Thanksgiving … and… and the parade!” The lone tear turned into tears and then sobs.
Dr. Chawla patted my knees and looked at Vickie, “What are her counts?”
Vickie rambled off my near zero counts as Dr. Chawla took the lab report and studied it.
“If I promise you, you will be home on Thanksgiving for your Turkey-- even if it’s for that one day-- will you promise me  you’ll go back to the hospital tomorrow.”
I shook my head emphatically yes.
Then he looked at Mark, “You’ll bring her back to the hospital; first thing in the morning?”
Mark hesitated.

I knew he didn’t want me leaving unless I was perfect, but I was far from it. I was ninety-five pounds of faltering hope, and if a turkey dinner was what I needed then by God that’s what I was going to get.  He shook his head and then lowered it in defeat.
“After this round, no more chemo cocktail,” Dr. Chawla said as he patted my legs and stood up.
“Wait, wait,” I pulled at his lab coat. It felt like punishment. He was taking away my chemo cocktail. “You said four rounds of cocktail. You said…”
“It’s okay, Mindy.” He walked back over to me and got back down on my level.  “Three rounds is good enough.”
“But I can do four.”
“It’s not necessary.” He smiled his warm, hopeful smile.  “After this you’re off chemo until your surgery.  Vickie, schedule the surgery.”
I didn’t make it home for the kickoff of the parade, but I did make it home for Turkey. Next morning I checked back into the hospital for seven more days of transfusions in my isolation room.

Christmas was spent with me off chemo and getting ready for my January 4th surgery.
I woke up from the surgery to my mom whispering excitedly in my ear, “Mindy, wake up.  They got it all! Your margins are clear.  Mindy, wake up.  100% clear margins.  Mindy, wake up.  You did it. It’s all dead.”
 When I went back to the chemo chair at the end of January, I was on the cleanup rounds.  Five rounds of methotrexate and my chemo buddy, Kim, was back!
 Round after round, month after month we sat in our black lazy boys and dreamed about the future.  Kim wanted to walk down the aisle.  Not walk on a crutch, not walk with a cane, she wanted to walk down the aisle. She wanted to be a mom. We talked about babies and kids. We even secretly plotted that she would have a girl, and I would have a boy and they would be fated lovers whose mother's met in the chemo room.
Of course, that meant we both had to “come back on line”.
In May, Kim finished her last round and gave me a big hug on her second birthday.  That’s what they call it when you’re unplugged for the last time.  The chemo nurses and the patients sing happy birthday to you, because, from that day forward, you’ve been given a second chance at life.
“I’m going to check in on,” Kim said as she squeezed me goodbye.  “You have my email and my cell. Call me if you need me.”
“I will.” I choked back the tears.  I still had two rounds to go.
“I’m going to call you,” Kim said as she walked out the door.
It felt like I was being left in prison, and my friend was escaping.  The room seemed to dull as Kim left. The hum of the chemo machines drowned out the melody of happy birthday.  And we were back to saving lives.

6/21/01

The end, being so close, bring all kinds of different feeling to the surface. 

I just emailed Kim to see how she dealt with the last round. 

I’m almost numb. 

Like I don’t want to get too excited for fear that it won’t be the last one. 

But Dr. Chawla said my MRI and CAT scan came back clean, and everything looks good. 

I see all the new people starting or on their 2nd round and can remember when that was me. 

I’m tired of people thinking of me and saying, “Awe, poor little cancer girl.” 

I want them to see me and say, “What a survivor” so I can answer,

“Look what God has done.”  

I hope He is looking down on me, pleased…

I hope.

June 25th, 2001 Dr. Chawla unplugged me for the last time.  He smiled that ever-famous smile and said, “I’m so proud of you.”
I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear that from him.
Vickie smiled and shook her head, “ Happy Birthday, Mindy.  No more hospitals.”
My fellow chemo patients sang Happy Birthday.
I left happy … empty and scared.
I needed to call Kim. This couldn’t be normal.

10 Days for 10 Years ... Day 7

Day 7

The body is an amazing thing.

 It wants to be healthy.

 It wants to live and it wants to thrive.

October  19^th, 2000

My body is doing some really interesting things…

my period has stopped and ALL of my hair has fallen out.

Not just my head hair, but my nose hairs, my eyebrows and yes, even my vay-down-there hair.

 I’m like a cue-tip.

  I guess this is the part where I’m supposed to hope everything comes back.

You know what’s surreal?

 I know in my heart I’m going have children.

 That this situation is temporary. 

I’m finding a complete trust in my Lord and …

probably the happiest I’ve ever been.

By the second round of chemo cocktail I had Destiny Child’s SURVIVOR running through my head on endless loops.

Kim and I would hum it when we could see the other starting to cave.  Chemo is a mental game. You have to focus on your chemicals killing the cancer and not killing you.  It’s  a twenty-four hour game and it’s pretty exhausting.

As I was ending my second round, Kim was getting ready for her surgery.  She had a sarcoma in her femur and the good doctors at USC were going to basically fillet her thigh muscle, cut out her femur and put a new titanium one in.

No problem, right?

 Kim getting ready for her surgery meant that she was off chemo for four weeks and that meant I was on my own.  My counts didn’t last past my first blood check.

Vickie came back shaking her head and said, “You got to go to the hospital.”

That meant more transfusions and at least a week in the hospital.

It also meant I could be spending Halloween in the hospital.

Back to the transplant ward I went.

The first week past and my counts were still low.

I was also building an anti-body that was fighting the blood and platelet transfusions. Finding blood that my body would accept was now going from not just my blood type but to a four point matching system. I need four points and the blood banks couldn’t find it.

Mark wouldn’t leave my side, except to go to school and work, and when he had to, my dad would be there with me. 

They were like a tag team.

My dad would leave around seven or eight.

Mark had snuck a board the width of the chair into my room and hidden it in my closet.  At night he would stick the board between two chairs and sleep holding my hand.

One night we were watching the Saturday Night Live Presidential Special.  The lights were off and only the TV lit my room.  He looked over at me and said, “this is exactly what we’d be doing if we were at home.”

“Yeah, but you’d be in bed with me.”

“Scooch over,” he said and climbed into my hospital bed with me. 

The nurse tried to shoo him out, when she came in to check my vitals, but he wouldn’t leave me…

He wouldn’t leave me.