Seven Days of Thankfulness....Day Five

I've learned that being thankful and dwelling on the things you're grateful for is a great way to battle the blues.  So it's funny that God...in his infinite wisdom...gave me this brilliant idea to start Seven Days of Thankfulness on the most emotionally grueling week of my life.  You see, he knows that I couldn't start writing a seven day series and end at day two....it would drive me insane.  He wanted me to keep reflecting on the things I'm most grateful for in order to keep me positive and focused on what's good in my life right now.

I started this blog in 2005 and over ten years I've written a lot about absolutely nothing and a little bit of everything.  It's been a hodge podge of my life's misadventures.  So, I thought it'd be the perfect space to chronicle what I'm going through right now.  As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been having problems swallowing as of late...three months to be exact.  I'm notorious for having medical issues and letting them fester and get worse because I have avoidance issues and I feel like Dr's visits always seem to lead to.....more Dr's visits.  But, this time I was surprisingly proactive.  Possibly because I love food...especially swallowing it!!

I got referred to a GI specialist, who poked and prodded my gut a little and listened to my rant about my esophagus...and then assured me that I had nothing to worry about.  Sometimes your esophagus can narrow on its' own and that's what he thought mine was doing.  He scheduled an endoscopy a few days later to widen my esophagus a bit.  The day of the endoscopy I was eager to get the issue resolved.  I wanted to eat my dry piece of turkey breast on Thanksgiving painlessly!  But, when I woke up from anesthesia I had an even bigger problem....he found a mass.

On Monday morning, I found out the mass had a name...esophageal adenocarcinoma.  So, I'm 41 years old, and I have cancer.  I didn't even have a day to process the information before I was thrown face first into battle mode.  Everything this week has moved at lightening speed.  That same day I was in the hospital for a CT scan...which was clear, by the way....no spreading to my organs or bones!  The next day I was meeting with my oncologist.  It was overwhelming, to say the least.  He used phrases like "aggressive mass" and "high morbidity rate" and "you need chemotherapy."  

I realized that I hadn't thought this thing through.  I thought I'd have snip here and a snip there and be perfectly okay.  But those snips are apparently a highly complex resection that can't be done here in Oklahoma.  Not to mention chemo...  Upon my Dr's suggestion, I'm gearing up for surgery in Houston at MD Anderson.  I don't have the details ironed out yet because I have more testing to do to see if the cancer has spread to my lymph nodes.

I would have never thought that I'd end the year by beginning a battle with cancer.  Then again, I never thought I'd be so mentally prepared to deal with all of this either.  But life is full of little surprises.  Which brings me to why I'm thankful....

This week, I had to deliver this news to my friends and family.  It's not a statement that someone is ever prepared to make or hear.  I know that it was just as hard on all of them as it was on me.  So today I'm thankful for an amazing group of friends and family...who always make me feel loved and supported.  I don't know how many people responded with "I'm praying" and "please let us help you."
Words can't express how grateful I am to know that I don't have to go through this battle on my own...but that there are amazing people standing with me.

I've decided to use this blog as a portal to keep everyone posted with updates.  I haven't been a consistent blogger/writer in several years.  But I'm committed to it now...and I feel like I have a story to share as I start this journey to kick cancer's butt.