Wednesday, October 14th, 2015. A day I will never forget. The day my world was flipped upside down. The day I was told I had cancer.
I took Kendall to our pediatrician this sunny day. She was going to get her tubes in two days later and we were seeing Dr. Mary for a pre-op appt. When Dr. Mary walked into the room she took one look at me and asked what was wrong... "Nothing?!" "Are you feeling all right, mom?" "Yeah?" "You don't look well, Rhonda." After an extensive conversation and exam she convinced me to get bloodwork done THAT DAY. I called my internist, bloodwork was ordered, I fasted the rest of the day, went at 7PM to get poked, went home, ate something, did my thing and went to bed at 10:00. Probably asleep at 10:01 - I was usually exhausted at this point of the day, especially if I had enough in me to not lay down and take a nap that afternoon... who isn't exhausted at the end of the day after running after two energizer bunnies?
11:45 that night. Just 1 hour and 45 minutes after I crashed, I was awoken by my husband handing me the phone with the most concerned look on his face. "Here. It's Dr. Gavran..." "Hi Rhonda, I'm sorry to be calling you at this hour but I was just contacted by the lab. Your bloodwork is very abnormal. I would like you to get the ER as soon as possible. We need to run further tests. Your platelet level is very elevated which puts you at the risk of having a stroke. But, more importantly, your white blood cell count is at 307,000. These should be between 4-10,000. This is a red flag for leukemia. If it is, in fact, leukemia we would want to start chemo right away and any other treatment necessary. With any luck, this is chronic leukemia and that's very treatable. But, we won't know until we run further tests. I am going to call the ER doctor and the oncologist on call immediately so everyone knows to be expecting you."
That's when I finally sat up. WHAT?! Is this a dream? Wake me from this nightmare! I couldn't even speak. I don't even know what the Dr said after that. Here I was just woken from a dead sleep and told I had that awful, dreaded "C" word.
I eventually got myself out of bed to change. Jason called my mom and dad to come over. All I could do was say, "OH MY GOD!" I prayed. I prayed so hard. I sat on that bed and prayed. It seemed like an eternity until my parent's got there. I paced in between my two sleeping babies. Kissing them, hugging them, praying over them, trying to control my sobs so to not wake them.
By 1:00AM I was checked into the ER and into a room. Hurry up and wait. With my husband and dad by my side I was being asked a million questions. "Do you have any pain?" "No." Any discomfort?" "No" "Are you fatigued?" "Sure, I could take a nap every afternoon." "Any change in appetite?" "No." "Weight loss?" "Yes. But I was trying!" "Anything else going on?" "Well, yes. Crazy night sweats. So bad I'm up 2-4 times to change clothes and find a new place to sleep because my spot was drenched. And shortness of breath causing a cough." The dr feels my stomach. "Wow, your whole stomach has dropped. Your spleen is extremely enlarged taking up the whole stomach cavity." Yet, another sign of leukemia. The more she talked, the more I wanted to crawl into a hole. She tells me to hang tight as she waited for more results of more blood that was just taken. She leaves. I start sobbing. We all started sobbing. This can't be happening! I'm not ready to die! I can't die! I have 2 babies! In my head I was composing my letters to my children and my family. I was just given my death sentence.
Around 4AM I am admitted for observation until the oncologist and pathologist review all the bloodwork to give me my diagnosis. I was told this was going to take hours because they had 300,000 cells to look at. After getting settled into my room, and knowing it would be at least late morning until I was seen, Jason and my dad decide to go home to catch some sleep. They leave and there I lay in the dark silence (well, as much silence there can be when your room is outside the nurse's station and the elderly man in the room next to you pukes his guts out every 20 minutes. Shame, I felt bad for him. I actually sat and prayed for him) Needless to say, I didn't sleep. My mind was going here, there and everywhere and the last thing I wanted to do was close my eyes.
Jason came back around 8 for a bit as he was going with Blake on his first field trip to a pumpkin farm. We basically just sat and cried together. He left and shortly after that my nurse came in to ask if I was up for a visitor. It was my brother. Him and I cried together. The phone rang and it was my sister in law. I cried with her. My dad came back too. I WAS SO SCARED. I have leukemia. I have cancer.
Those 10 hours from the initial phone call to get to the ER until the oncologist walked in seemed like an eternity. He began asking those million questions. The ones I had answered 12 times by now. We went through them all. He looked at me and said he's 90% sure this is chronic myeloid leukemia. Although I still had no idea what that meant, I just remember Dr. Gavran saying, "With any luck this is chronic leukemia." After chatting a little more he said he would be returning by noon to do a bone marrow biopsy, starting me on a chemo pill and he would be sending me home to play with my babies!!! I cried some more. We all cried some more! This time the tears seemed to be more tears of joy than complete fear.
November 14th, 2015. One whole month later. Here I sit on the couch. Home. With my family. SO much has happened in the past 4 weeks. I am feeling better than I have felt in MONTHS. I have since turned all my doctoring and care over to the team of brains at Loyola. I go for weekly blood draws where Loyola will monitor me. My doc doesn't feel the need to see me for two months!! I take an oral chemotherapy pill that they feel will put me into a deep remission within just a few short months (but I will remain on for the rest of my life). WOW! My spleen is shrinking and it lets me know its shrinking by giving me really awesome cramps/charlie horses. Minor side effects of the meds I am learning to live with. My new normal. I don't care. It means I'm getting better and healthier. My white blood cell count has drastically dropped in 4 weeks time.
Now that this disease is starting to get under control, I realize just how sick I was. I. WAS. MISERABLE. Like everyone else, I had an answer to all my symptoms. Weight loss? I was doing my ever so faithful Weight Watchers! I was TRYING to lose weight! Here I thought I was doing AWESOME on it!!! Bulging belly? Oh, the joys of having children, right?! Your body never goes back to the way it was. Night sweats? Oh, my hormones are going crazy. Tired/Fatigued? Who couldn't use a nap in the afternoons? Especially being home with some very energetic toddlers. Tired/Sore muscles? Gosh, I'm out of shape. Shortness of breath/cough? Those stupid allergies. The signs were all there but I didn't feel sick. I had no pain. I ate. I didn't know I had leukemia.
What I do know is I have the absolute BEST support system. My husband, my parents, my family, my friends. The outpouring of love, support and, most importantly, prayers, has been overwhelmingly amazing. They all need it just as much as me. I am forever grateful for everyone fighting right along with me. I am also forever grateful for Dr. Mary Collins for getting this whole ball rolling. I may have left her office in tears because I was scared, but, because of her, this was caught and already beginning to show that its headed in the right direction She has been a tremendous support through it all too. Providing me with sound advice and being a sounding board for me. Together, we got this. Together, we are going to kick cancer's ass! Love you all!
