January 28th 2010~ I had my first appt with the Oncologist today. Dr. Anthony is a very nice man and is ready to get the ball rolling. He did a physical and we looked over my CT scan together. At this point he felt the cancer was only in the area of the removed lymph node. He said I would be a Stage I or possibly a stage II. He got me right in for another CT scan and a bone marrow biopsy.

January 29th 2010~ The people at Evergreen Hemotolgy and Oncology are all wonderful. As are my family and friends that know what is going on. Frank's dad babysat the kids on his own for the first time. And probably about the 3rd time watching Irelynn at all. I am not one to part with my kids. It is VERY rare for them to be with a babysitter unless we are working.

So I was lucky enough to get to drink some barium before this appt. YUM YUM :( I got to the office and they put an IV in me. I sat for quite some time and was finally taken in to have the CT scan done. I then returned to the infusion area and waited for my time to do the bone marrow biopsy. It seemed like forever! While I was waiting Dr. Anthony came in and spoke with me and said that from the looks of the CT scan it looked like my lymph nodes in my upper chest area are also an area of concern as well as the lymph node on the opposite side from the one that was removed. He said he would know more after my PET scan on Tuesday and we would go over everything at our follow up appt on the 9th.
Finally it was time to do the bone marrow biopsy. The procedure itself was not a problem at all. I was "consiously sedated". It was SOOOO painful for about 3 days afterwords! I think mostly because it was on my lower back, upper bottom so it was very painful to sit and sleep. Now we are back to the waiting game...

January 30th 2010~ I have been in a lot of pain today from the bone marrow biopsy. I called a very good friend of the family (Sheryl Sedra) both to let her know what was going on and to get some support. Her son who was like a little brother to me for years lost his very long fight with Leukemia about 10 1/2 years ago. I spent my 21st birthday at his funeral. My friend Arlie and her kids also came over to play which was very nice. I kicked Frank out of the house for a while.

Feb 2nd 2010~ Today I had a PET scan. I wasn't too "scared" about this test, at least not about having it done. Just figured it was like the CT scan. I got to Evergreen and walked myself back to the infusion room (3rd appt there and they know my name and let me pretend I own the place ;)). I assumed it was quick and easy so I didn't take a book to read or anything to do. I don't even have a cell phone to play games on. So they put my IV in and took some blood. I have had more IVs in the last few weeks than I have ever had in my life. After about 45 minutes they finally came and got me to do the PET scan. I should have done more research... They put something radioactive into my IV and said I had to wait 2 hours for it to all get into my body. I actually asked him if he was serious. I tried to take a little nap to pass the time and he offered me a book to read, but I couldn't get into it. It did help me to fall asleep for a bit though.

So finally its my turn to do the scan which takes about 45 minutes. I did a great job though! He even showed me the scan afterwords. We still have to wait until the 9th for the "official results" but the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes in my chest area as well as the other side of my neck. I think this still keeps me at a Stage II.

I believe I am looking at 6-8 months of Chemotherapy. There is a very high cure rate with this type of cancer, but it is still cancer, which scares me to death. There are some days that I can't even look at my kids without crying. Some days go by like nothing is wrong at all. I am glad to at least have an idea of why I have been so run down. It is kind of depressing, we had such a long winter last year and almost no summer.And then add Irelynn and her heart surgery and other 2 surgeries, I was really looking forward to this spring and summer. I pray that I will be well enough to go to our 6th annual opening day for the Mariners on April 12th. I will truely break my heart if I ruin this tradition for our family.

As of right now, this is what I know. I will update this as I learn more and occasionally just to let you know how my day is going.

I want to thank all of my family and friends that know what has been going on and have stepped up to the plate and offered support. It means the world to me.