Ok so as of the last post I was planning to take you through my journey with cervical cancer. Well that didn't go as planned. Today I will briefly hit on that journey as well as what all has happened since then up till today, so buckle up and let's dive in.
We all watch these movies which show the people going through treatments and such and still living almost completely normal lives. Well that wasn't the case for me and for some others. Maybe it would have been different had I been the main source of income or a single parent as I would have had no other option but to struggle with that added task. I was very fortunate to have a loving husband that not only supported me through the whole thing but that stayed.
So the shortened back story is this and I will timeline this for ya...
Jan 2019 I tried a new supplement and within days started randomly bleeding. After about a week I stopped the supplement thinking that was the cause but it wasn't. From the moment the bleeding started til the next point in time I randomly bleed and it normally went like this. Go to the bathroom to pee and bleed, put on panty liner and as soon as I stood it was full, change to pad, take a few steps and it was full, change pad and then just spotting for about an hour then stop. Sometimes once a week and sometimes once or twice a month. No specific time just whenever so I started carrying extra underwear and pads if I left the house and I tried to minimize leaving when I could.
June 2019 This is where it started getting real for me. Roughly mid month followed the normal go to the bathroom routine above but with a scary twist. This time the bleeding didn't stop. I sat there for what felt like forever that night but in reality was just a few minutes but I knew I would need a shower to get clean after that and thankfully our tub was maybe 2 steps from the toilet so kicked off the clothes squeezed those muscles there as tight as I could and got into the tub. Well I felt a little light headed so i squatted down and bam out more came. At this point hubby was getting worried and came to check and when he saw the tub the only comment out of his mouth was "who did you kill, this looks like a crime scene". After that it stopped. I got cleaned up with his help as I was shaking, tired, and pale. I then sat on the bed and made the choice to go to the er. They did some tests, gave me fluids and pain meds, did an internal ultrasound and told me it was probably fibroids. Sent me home with a medicine to stop the bleeding and told me to go see a gyn. It took 2 weeks (June 27th) to get seen and less than 15 minutes to be diagnosed unofficially. We talked to the doctor, decided to do a hysterectomy but he needed to do an exam first since I wasn't a patient there recently. As soon as he touched that area the water works started and he said "I think you have cancer, I need you to go straight to the ER and I am calling a friend in Wilmington who is an oncologist". Well after the nurses help and almost passing out a few times made it to his office to see what the plan was. Hubby took me across the street to er an I had to wait there for transport. June 28th the oncologist took me for a test in the ER and told me I have cancer. I spent the next week in the hospital getting that area packed, starting treatments, getting an embolism to stop the bleeding after almost bleeding to death on the toilet.
July 2019 I got to go home. This month is easy and will be short because the routine was the same. During this time I had to be taken 1.5 hrs from my home by friends and strangers to get treatment and then brought home to my husband who would help me inside and to bed and had to listen to me wake up at night talking like I was drunk with me remembering nothing about it.
Mondays and Wensdays get up, chemo, radiation, home to bed
Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays go to radiation and home to bed
Now on chemo days they gave me extra fluids because I developed an issue where if I drank water I would vomit. Doctors had never heard of that so they tested me thinking I was making it up and wanted to see. Well they had the nurses test me and pass info along but they never did anything and I rarely saw the oncologist (which I found out late in treatment was not normal). It took 52 intense treatments to kill the cancer.
I hardly ate at all and now 5.5 years later I still have issues with plain water and can't stomach yogurt very well. Side effect wise from it all due to how the radiation worked part of my bowel was radiated also so I do have spells of liquid poops that are acidic and hurt (not as bad as during treatment those times i cried) my hair thinned out (thankfully i didn't lose it) and will not get as thick as it was and oddly my teeth are eating away at themselves no matter how i brush them.
Aug 2019 Thankfully I was doing better and got to go to my oldest son's Navy bootcamp graduation which made me happy since I had to watch his highschool one that was televised due to the bleeding issues.
After this things settled down until 2023 when I went back to work so hubby could take a job that paid less because we started noticing some issues there. Nothing major happened until the fall when he quit working and we just adjusted things to live off his VA disability and what I made. We started trying to get him seen to figure out the issues which took a while. We still didn't have answers to what was going on with him but had some concerns. My brother had passed away and so in December my dad mentioned retiring in early 2024 and wanted us to move back and live in the house next door which was my grandmas then my brothers and now is mine.
2024 This was a big year for us in many ways. I worked 5 days a week and would travel right after I got off 2.5 hrs away to help empty our house now during my 2 days off then when back late so i could work. We decided to pull hubby retirement money out so I could quit in March and focus full time on the move. We fixed up our house there to sell and moved everything up here in stages.
May Our daughter an child #2 graduated from early college and then her and her dad moved with the dogs and chickens to our current homestead full time while I stayed finishing up the other house and the boys finished school.
June house went on the market and went under contract in under a week. We moved completely out June 12th and all of the inspections and everything took a while but while things happened there we worked on the new place and took our daughter to her college orientation.
July the house sale completed and we moved on with things here and finally have a neurologist working on the issues my hubby has trying to find the cause.
August dropped our daughter at school, took the boys on a train ride and prepared for the school year jumping through hoops to get them in as things were lost on their end.
November kids are not doing great in school. went from a's and b's to c's and d's some because they were bored waiting to learn something new and my youngest #4 felt the teachers didn't like him. We decided to homeschool using an online program and pulled him just before Thanksgiving and so far he's loving it and back to straight A's. Our other son wanted to stay in school due to wanting to play sports and the potential of a welding class next school year during his senior year since he wants to go into the trades.
Jan 2025 so currently we're just still working on finding out what's wrong with hubby and living life. Due to his issues I did not go back to work and we have learned to just live on his VA disability. I will try to do better keeping up on things and am hoping to accomplish a few things this year. I will list them below and will keep you updated when they get done. Any suggestions on things you want to read or see on videos drop suggestions below.
GOALS 2025
1) rebuild our garden
2) build new coop for main flock and for old english birds
3) buy 20 birds to replace some of our non layers
4) get my craft room finished and hoping start back on youtube videos
5) finish organizing the pantry
