My Mom's Story, Or Miracle.

[Angel-Bi-420]

I'll tell you about my ordeal my first round with having cancer.. it was just awful.. lol, as if cancer is a joy ride....... I think it all started after I gave birth to my son in December of 96.. I of course had a severe case of hemmeroids, which I thought was normal after pushing something the size of a watermelon out of my body, as did my own OB/GYN at the time.. later to find out that getting hemmorids as bad as I had them was just one symptom of Colorectal Cancer.. when Christopher was about 4 weeks old, I made supper like normal, a spaghetti dinner, ate it and within an hr. afterward I was in severe pain.. it felt as if I was being squeezed from the inside out, beginning from the mid right front of my body, wrapping around to the middle of my back.. let me tell you, I would rather give birth to a thousand watermelons than suffer the pain I had at that moment.. but, it did not stop there.. I dealt with this for two years.. until finally, when I was 5 months pregnant with my youngest daughter Jessica, I could not drink a glass of water without having an attack.. turned out to be gallstones.. a BAD case of it.. I was hospitalized and had surgery while pregnant, only because I could not get any nourishment.. they were concerned for the baby as well.. had my gallbladder removed, recovered and life was ooooh so much better... so, I thought.

When I reached my 7th month of pregnancy with Jessica, I went into pre-term labor.. she was ready to be born dammit, and she tried.. until they stopped it with magnesium sulfate.. some nasty stuff to help relax the uterus.. that was an ordeal in itself.. we were in hospital for two weeks until my contractions ceased and I did not dilate any further.... she then waited and came three weeks before her due date on March 5, 1999.. 8 lbs. 4 1/2 oz. 21 in. and such a gorgeous perfect little baby girl... I had NONE of these issues with my first pregnancy, with Angel, my oldest.. that was a perfect pregnancy..

So then, life went on, I went back to work just before Jessica turned 6 months old.. was a good job, great pay, benefits.. enough so that my husband took time off of from his seasonal job to stay at home with our kids.. all was dreamy and fine, until that January of 2000.. I started to lose weight, thought it was due to my schedule and the work I did, factory work, we worked for Ford, Chrysler and GM mostly on truck body parts.. I got a workout.. lol............. then came the 'bouts of constipation, diarrhea, followed with rapid weight loss.. and the PAIN of an obstruction in my bowel.. it got to the point it began to interfere with my job on the lines.. I had to constantly ask to be relieved to go to the bathroom, finally, both sides, myself and my boss, got fed up and we came to an agreement for me to quit... and I did.

For months following my quitting my job, it got worse and worse, to the point of severe anorexia, I couldn't eat without going into pain.. so, I literally starved myself.. not because I wanted to, but because I HAD to.. that, in combination of losing weight from the cancer itself, I began to look like a holocaust victim.. by the time I was diagnosed, I had weighed in at 104 lbs.. my average healthy weight has always been around 140.. altho, I was still pretty heavy at first after giving birth to my last baby.. when this all began I weighed in at my heaviest at 205 lbs.. 100 lbs. rapidly lost in a very short amount of time... not good, considering what was causing it..

FINALLY, after months and months of weight loss and pain, I got up in the middle of the night and went to the bathroom... nothing came out but a pool of blood.. I called my husband to come and see.. the next day he had me at the doctors.. she did a digital, referred me to a colorectal surgeon.. 3 days later had a colonoscopy.. a few days after that, found out it was cancer.. and it was bad.. my prognosis was very poor at that time.. I had been given a 15 month window of survival................ I had surgery in October, on a Friday the 13th.. that day, God worked a miracle that would domino from there....

 

So, the day of my surgery came and my doctor had come into see me that morn before my prep.. he told me he had to call in extra hands because of the extent of the procedure he planned on.. he was a bit freaked out because the tumor had grown so large and into other parts of my intestines and stomach, he wasn't sure how to remove it.. he called in a Surgical Specialist that dealt with removing tumors the size of mine.. he told me that in his 20 some odd years as a Colorectal surgeon, I was his first 26 yr. old female patient, the youngest in his career.. colon cancer does not usually hit till after 50.. and it had him more than nervous.. his name was Dr. Verendra Parikh... or 'Gods Hands' is what my family referred to him as.. I will forever hold that man close to my heart Jim... he and I became more than just Doctor and patient.. he even shed tears for me after I came out of surgery.. and watered up whenever we would speak intimaltely about my ordeal.. he credited God for his work on me.. as we all did. A wonderful Christian Doc... I need to send him an email.. to let him know I have not forgotten him.............

And so began my journey with cancer... the surgery consisited of removing over 70% of my colon, tissue removed from my small intestines, 10% of my stomach was removed, lymphnodes, I have a surgical scar that begins from just above my pelvis and ends just below my sternum, along with many other surgical scars that dot my abdomen........ the tests, the chemo, the sickness from the chemo, the mental and emotional and spiritual pain... I was a mess Jim.. a complete mess... that Spring, it was discovered it had spread to an extremely unusual place.. my aorta had a tumor the size of a softball growing on it.. just beneath and behind my heart, close to my kidneys.. again, all the docs were dumbfounded as to how in the world a relatively common cancer would or could even, spread to the aorta... at that point, they told me that there really was nothing they could do for me surgically because of where it was... I was warned once the tumor grew larger it would interfere with my kidney's, and once that happened my kidney's would most likely begin to shut down... so, the only alternative I had was to take in a more aggressive treatment of chemo... which, I did.. only to discover it wsn't helping.. so, by that April I had decided to go off the chemo and give my body a rest.. and in order to qualify for any clinical trials I would have had to have been off chemotherapy altogether for at least 6 months.. so, the plan was to try to get into IU's clinical trials sometime that fall...

 

So... September rolled around, 9-11 had taken place and life was even more uncertain for us at that time.. I was feeling good tho.. like I wasn't even sick at all.. my color had returned, I had put on weight... I had a feeling something wasn't just quite right about feeling so damn good to have cancer... still, I wasn't sure what lied ahead for me... I consulted with several Oncologist's at the clinic I had been going to since my surgery, Fort Wayne Hematology and Oncology, about the clinical trials being conducted at IU's Cancer Center and decided on one that looked to be up my ally.. one involved using a drug that was normally used to treat arthritis, come to find out tho, I am allergic to sulfonamides and somehow it fell into that category, so we decided on another that was similar and had planned on taking a trip that next week.. my dad was going to take me and we were supposed to stay there 3 days on and 5 days off for the treatments, looked to be a long haul ahead, but was willing to give it a shot.. ... I had to undergo all the normal testing to update my records so they could send them to IU .. cat scans, blood work.. the norm.. sooooooo, the day before I was scheduled to leave for Indianapolis, my husband and I had one last appt. with the Doc. at the chemo clinic to look over my tests and discuss the trial....

After what seemed like hrs. waiting for the head nurse to come in, here she come.. with this gawd awful look on her face with my chart in one hand and the cat scan results in the other.. she literally had her mouth open when she walked thru the door Jim... my heart sank when I seen the look on her face.. I was thinking, here we go again, she is going to tell me that I am sicker than they suspected and that I wasn't going anywhere... scared me.. she didn't say a word.. she took the cat scan results out from their envelope, turned on the light board popped the scan from 6 months before showing the giant tumor in plain sight, then popped the scan from just days before right next to it.. turned to us, opened my chart, pulled out my test results and sat down with TEARS in her eyes (I had become famous and close to the nurses in that clinic) handed me the paper and said, shaking her head in disbelief " Do you believe in miracles?" She stood up walked back to the light board and showed us that the tumor was non existent.. nothing, nada. not even a node... she turned back around pointed to the numbers and it showed ZERO cancer cell count.. red blood cells, white blood cells.. every other thing that was tested.. NORMAL... (I'm crying right now as I write this, lol) my husband and I looked at one another and was speechless.. I had no idea how to take that news in... I stood up, I walked over to the nurse, we hugged.. she kissed my cheek.. we left.. first stop.. was my dads house.. my dad... (this is emotional for me) fell to his knees, my mother started screaming... as I still sat there, unemotional... not sure what to think.. it wasn't until months later that I KNEW what took place.......... Jim, I seen things before they told me this.. I felt things, I heard things... that was of God.. I don't tell very many people this, for fear of being made out a crazy lady...for this... I KNOW GOD is very very REAL.

[Sparkly Eyes]

Thanks for sharing your story. it brought tears to my eyes... my mother went through cancer too and now she is all ok.

[Angel-Bi-420]

Thanks for sharing your story. it brought tears to my eyes... my mother went through cancer too and now she is all ok.

 

Just thought i would share such a great story. Yeah she end up getting thyroid cancer a couple years later. If that wasn't mentioned in the story. And all through this, my dad passed away in '06 of melinoma. So cancer runs big time in my family. I can't even begin to imagine my risks of getting it. But thanks for the comment(: And im happy to hear that your mom is nice and Healthy(:

[Puddincup]

Thanks for writing out your mom's story. It was wonderful to hear that she was cancer free; although I see now that the cancer came back. I hope she will be ok.

[Sanesoul]

Wow. This story really touched my heart. My mother was diagnosed with this same cancer when she was pregnant with my sister. Unfortunately, she lost her battle when I was 6 years old.

 

Hugs to you and I'm so happy for you and your mother.

 

Sidenote--Give her hugs and kisses everyday. God gave her back to you, and don't ever take that for granted.

[Angel-Bi-420]

Wow. This story really touched my heart. My mother was diagnosed with this same cancer when she was pregnant with my sister. Unfortunately, she lost her battle when I was 6 years old.

 

Hugs to you and I'm so happy for you and your mother.

 

Sidenote--Give her hugs and kisses everyday. God gave her back to you, and don't ever take that for granted.

 

Thanks(: And im so so sorry sweetheart to hear about your mom. I lost my dad a week before my birthday, and my birthday just so happen to be on fathers day that year. But Thanks again.(:

[Angel-Bi-420]

Thanks for writing out your mom's story. It was wonderful to hear that she was cancer free; although I see now that the cancer came back. I hope she will be ok.

 

She battled that cancer and got rid of it. I didn't write this, she did her self. Someone asked her for the story. But thanks(:

[vertigoxo]

This story has left me speechless... You and your family are extremely brave to have come this far battling with so many deadly diseases, and for this I am glad you are willing to share this wonderful story with all of us. Makes me believe that miracles do happen in life. I admire your mom for her strength and courage... I wish her the very best and wish her good luck for fighting thyroid cancer! I am so sorry about your father though. May he rest in peace.

 

Thank you for PMing this story to me, it really did made me smile big on the inside!

[Angel-Bi-420]

This story has left me speechless... You and your family are extremely brave to have come this far battling with so many deadly diseases, and for this I am glad you are willing to share this wonderful story with all of us. Makes me believe that miracles do happen in life. I admire your mom for her strength and courage... I wish her the very best and wish her good luck for fighting thyroid cancer! I am so sorry about your father though. May he rest in peace.

 

Thank you for PMing this story to me, it really did made me smile big on the inside!

 

And thank you, for taking the time out of your day to read this. I'm so glad that this stroy, opens peoples eyes.(: