It's all good.

It is hard to believe that it was 4 years ago to the day that I started this blog when I found out I had breast cancer, it feels like moons ago on some days and others make it feel like it just happened. Tuesday was the ladder. I had some pains under my left arm where my lymph nodes were removed, I knew it was probably nothing more than just push-ups at pilates class causing the pain, but after such trauma, you find any excuse to get your insurance to pay for a scan. Anyone who knows my story knows that sometimes the cancer "bugs" like to hang out places that mammograms just won't see. So when the pain was there I talked to my doctor about having a CAT Scan just to "ease my mind". I should behave as a veteran for these tests, after all I have had 2 PET scans and a CAT before this one, but just the smell of the nasty drink and the hospital itself is enough to make me want to run, screaming the other direction. While Clay and I drove up to Atlanta I began to alternate the drink like this...one swig nasty, one swig Starbucks. It helped. When we arrived it was time to insert an IV so that they could run the dye through my body to get the pictures that they needed to investigate my "innards". This took time...I began to sweat and take extra deep breaths before the nurse could even get me to flex my hands! Because I did have my lymph nodes removed from my left side, the doctors insist that I get blood drawn from my right...with that said, I have a lot of scar tissue, so on this particular day she had to call Clay in the room, lie me down and go into my hand, which is a terrible feeling!



Once the IV was in place - the rest was a piece of cake...lie on the table, and it will take you inside the donut, there you simply "breathe in and hold", and "continue breathing". While lying there for the next ten minutes all I could do was thank God for bringing me through all of that sickness in the first place and how I knew these test would be fine. I also began wondering if the guy who invented the CAT scanner was actually on a Disney World ride when he did so...



In 2005 I was so chemo stoned when I made those radical decisions to have everything (that produced estrogen) removed from my body, although I knew it was the right decision it is much easier to say "ok" when you have just been though hell and back with 8 treatments. There have been many times that I have regretted the decision. Who wouldn't? The instant hot flashes, the rage of hormonal imbalance, the feeling that I would never be normal again...is all unbearable sometimes. However, Clay always reminds me that I was never "normal" in the first place!


Through it all I know that it was God and the surgeries that saved my life and with each test/scan that I take I am reassured that I made the right choice to live, maybe not to the fullest everyday, but everyday indeed.