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Cancer Surgery Day

Today is my surgery day- the day I have a complete thyroidectomy and neck dissection to remove the cancer in my thyroid and lymph nodes.  This isn’t the end of this, but the beginning- the beginning to get this out of my body.

I have written a lot over the past few months about my feelings and thoughts with cancer.  I have many more I haven’t written.  I have experienced every emotion, and then some.  I  discovered the strength people saw in me that I didn’t see in myself.  Through their eyes, I  have discovered that strength for myself.

I can’t thank everyone enough for all the positive comments, prayers, love, and support you have shown me during this time. I wouldn’t be feeling so optimistic about the surgery today and my future, if it wasn’t for all of you- my family, and my loved ones. 

 Today is the major step I have to take to get from being a cancer patient to a cancer survivor. This is the first of many steps, but I am ready.  I have done what I needed to do to prepare, and now it is time to turn it over to the highly competent people who have the medical knowledge to help me become cancer free.

I feel at peace, confident, and nervous.  I never in a million years imagined I would be facing a surgery of this magnitude, but in life we don’t always get to chose the direction it takes us in.  I have found so many positive things in this experience as well, and I will share those in another blog post in the future.

Please keep my family and myself in your thoughts and prayers today.  The surgery is going to be anywhere from 7-12 hours long.  My good friend, Amy, (aka Crunchy Domestic Goddess) will update my blog and my Twitter account for me when she can, since it will be several days before I am able to blog again.  Please keep Ryan and Cole in your prayers too. I am not sure how many days it will be before I am well enough to see them, and that will be one thing that will be motivating me for a fast recovery in the hospital. 

Tonight my sister, Vanessa, gave me card.  It said on the front of it, “everything will be okay in the end.  If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”  That made me laugh and it is true.  This isn’t the end for me- just a very big obstacle, but one that is not hopeless. 

 This surgery is hope for me, and is hope that I will recover and remain cancer free for my family and friends.   There has been some awful, awful dark days – days where I wanted to give up, but my family and friends wouldn’t let me.  Their amazing support got me through those days, and in that I found reasons to try another day and hope things would get better. 

I love you all, and thank you from the bottom of my heart for not just being there for me through this, but taking it on as well for me.  Thank you for giving me hope, when I couldn’t find it myself.  I am going to end this blog post with a quote I found a few days ago- you all helped me find that hope. 

When the world says, “Give up,”

Hope whispers, “Try it one more time.”

~ Unknown

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Letter to My Heart

I am participating in BlogHer’s Valentine’s Day 2009  event, Letter To My Heart.  My letter below also appears on BlogHer, and you can read all the letters here. 

From BlogHer Describing Letter to My Heart: With “Letter to My Heart,” BlogHer is inviting women to share stories about love, loss, relationships, romance and, yes, even Valentine’s Day. Love isn’t easy, and it takes so many forms.  

Dear Heart,

I have never written a letter to you before, so it is long overdue. 

Where do I start?  What could I possibly write to you about love that you don’t already know?  You may know everything about love, but I don’t. 

My first memories of love were from my parents and my siblings.  I didn’t realize it was love- it just felt nice, and warm, and it felt like everything was right in the world.  No one else but my mom would do, when I was sick.  No one else but my dad would do when I wanted a story read, and no one else but my brother and sisters would do as my closest friends (and sometimes tormentors).

As a family, we knew what buttons to push with each other but we also knew deep down, underneath it all, we loved each other fiercely.  Even though there were disagreements and arguments, I knew there was nothing that would ever come between us permanently.  Family is where love started for me. 

As I grew older and grew up- I also learned I could love my friends too.  Again, everything felt right in the world with true friends.  As I continued growing and romantic love came into play, well, that is where it started getting tricky.   I know you remember, Heart.  Who doesn’t remember their loves?  From their first love to the one they believe with all of their heart, will be their last love?  I am no different and I remember them.  But, I also remember all the complications too. 

Why are there always complications?  Why is love so difficult?  Why isn’t it enough to just love someone, and have them love you back?  What do you do when you realize the love you thought you would have forever is gone?  What do you do when you know you are not loved anymore?  What do you do when the lines have been crossed- between love and hate- gentle and hurt- praise and criticism- and there is no chance of ever going back to that time before the lines were crossed? What do you do when you realize you have been broken, Heart?

I know I have to answer these questions for myself.  I started to allow myself to listen to you, and acknowledge my feelings.  I became strong enough to feel what you were telling me through the silence.   When I trusted myself enough Heart, you gave me the answers.  The answers that had always been there, but I had forgotten how to find them. 

This is why I wanted to write you finally after all these years, Heart.  I think I am starting to understand.  Love certainly has not worked out the way I planned or wanted it to. But the family and friends that have been there from the beginning, have. 

Nothing, especially love, is certain or is forever, no matter how much I want it to be.  But, Heart, you know and have guided me to the place where I need to be.  For strength, for comfort, and to heal- back to the beginning. To my family and friends, where I can always find those early memories of love- nice warm, and as if everything was right in the world.  It is where love started and where it will always be. 

Love,

Heather

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Moved, Old Cell Phone, & My Thyroid

We are moved-finally.  I thought that would be it, but the fun is only just beginning.

We lived in our old place for 11 years, and it was clean- clean until we moved every last piece of furniture out, and took down every last picture.  How come I never noticed that the walls aren’t really white anymore, but more like a light gray, and where did all those crayon, and little dirty hand-prints come from? 

So now we have more work that we thought  on our hands to do as quickly as possible, so it is ready to rent.  We have managed to put away most of our stuff in the new house, so at least that is somewhat organized.    But until you move all your stuff into a new place, you never really know.  This new kitchen is bigger, but I can’t fit everything from the old kitchen into the new kitchen.  At least we have a basement for storage.

I also wanted to get the computer set up as quickly as possible, and called a few weeks ago to make sure Internet would be on.  It was, but they failed to tell me I needed a new modem.  So I had to wait for that to be shipped to me.  I kid you not- the computer had been up and running for five minutes, when my cell phone locked me out.  It has never done this before, and it is the only phone I have in the house.  It wanted a PKU code- whatever that is- it was locked on that screen.   I tried taking the battery out and resetting it, and it didn’t work. I looked for help on-line and T-Mobile said they would send me the code-to my cell phone!  That wasn’t going to help me, because the screen was locked waiting for the PKU code!

After posting my frustration on Facebook, I realized that the phone was still hooked up at the old house.  As soon as the boys woke up from their nap, I loaded them in the car and went back to the house to call T-Mobile.  The boys were running and playing  around, and every noise they made was amplified by about 500% in the empty house.  It was lovely trying to tell the nice lady at T-Mobile that I was at the end of my rope with this cell phone.  A few minutes later she had it unlocked, but could not tell me why it had locked up in the first place.

I really, really, wanted to take the phone and back over it with the Jeep.  But I needed a phone for tonight and tomorrow.  I didn’t think my phone was that old, but it is almost two years old, and I have been told any phone over six months old, is considered old.  Evidently, I have a dinosaur for a cell phone. 

It wasn’t that big of a deal when I had a land line at home too, but now since this is my only phone, I can’t have another day like today, and thank goodness there wasn’t an emergency.  So after work tomorrow, I am going to go cell phone shopping.  Time to say good-bye to the Nokia 6010. 

Bye-byeimgnokia20601041

I know what kind of phone I want- we’ll see if I end up with it.  🙂

If that wasn’t enough, I had a yearly exam today, and I was told my thyroid is enlarged and it needs to be checked, ASAP.  I asked the doctor what does that mean, and she said it shouldn’t be enlarged and something is causing it- hormones, stress, a growth, or in rare cases cancer.  She drew some blood to check my thyroid levels and said that would tell her in a few days some information, but I need to go get an ultrasound at the hospital so they can look at it.  I really think this is stress or possibly hormone related, so I am not going to dwell on it for now, but if you want to send some positive thoughts my way, I would appreciate it. 

I know I promised pictures of the house, but I can’t find the camera.  Maybe I can take some on my new cell phone and post them soon. 🙂

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Our New House

At 10:45AM this morning, it was official-we closed on the house, and it is ours. 

Twelve hours later, it still doesn’t seem like it is real.  We have been looking for so long (for years), and nothing ever worked out.  You name it, we had it interfere with our new house plans.  From not being able to find something we liked, to finding something we liked, only to have it WAY out of our price range.  From having a few babies, and not wanting to move, to needing to move, but we weren’t ready financially. To being worried about job security, to having us both injured in car accidents, putting off our plans yet again to move.  To finding the perfect house, only to have our offer not accepted.  I think we have had every possible obstacle thrown at us, in our house hunting. 

But today, none of that mattered.  Our long term goal was finally being realized, and everything that had happened in the past, no longer mattered.  During the closing, where we signed form after form, after form, it seemed surreal.  Like we were buying a car, but not a house.  We were almost at the end, and our realtor and title company closer noticed a mistake on Joe’s name, the bank had made on the title deed. 

The title company lady got on the phone immediately to correct this, but the person she needed to talk to wasn’t there.  That is when my heart started to sink.  I just knew something was going to come up.  I expected her to get off the phone and say something like, “Sorry.  This isn’t going to work out today.  We’ll have to reschedule,” or something that would once again, postpone our house buying.

But that didn’t happen.  After a short delay, the bank re-did the form, and we had the correct form.  After we signed that form, the house was ours!  The lady from the title company shook our hands, and told us to enjoy our new house.

Joe and I grabbed a quick bite, and then headed off to work.  It still hadn’t really sunk in at that point.   

After dinner, we took the boys to the house.  They hadn’t seen it yet.  They were SO excited.  When we pulled up to the house, in the dark, and as Ryan got out of the car, he looked up at the sky and said, “Look Mom.  Look how many stars are in the sky.”

I hugged him.  Our new house is in the “country” so to speak.  It is in a subdivision, but in a small town, with not a lot going on-or lights.  Perfect to see the stars.  That is a big part of why we wanted a new house.  To get out of a bigger city.  So our children could see the stars at night.  

The boys ran around the house, squealing and exploring.  Their favorite feature so far of the new house is the support beam in the basement, which is their fireman pole. 

Ryan asked me at one point, if we really were moving here, or if we were just fooling him.  I told him we were not fooling him-we really were going to live here.  He got a huge smile and said “Good, because I really like it.”

The boys ran around, rolled on the old carpet, which is soon to be replaced, while Joe and I discussed which wood we want for the floors, and tried to talk about paint, but it is hopeless. We are not good paint color pickers.  Joe took this picture of the boys and I in front of the fireplace:

When we were leaving, (much to Cole’s dismay-he exclaimed, “I want to stay here all day!”)  Ryan looked up at the sky again, and said, “There sure are a lot of shiny stars here at our new house, Mom.”

I hugged him, and as we drove back to our current city, I thought, this was how it was supposed to happen for us.  This really is the perfect house for our family, and I think the stars do shine a bit brighter over our new house.

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Wordless Wednesday- Sunflowers

More great pictures at Wordless Wednesday