Dark Days

Waiting. Waiting is really hard. I felt that's all I did for the next couple of weeks. I stayed the rest of the week at Wrights Lake and the news spread of my cancer. I wasn't the only one in shock. Everyone was. I and everyone else wanted and needed more answers! That first night, my good friend Sue drove up to Wrights Lake to be with me that first night and day without Mike. It was a good thing she did. By the time she got there at midnight, my whole body had the shakes so bad we had to walk up and down the road in the moonlight, until my body calmed down. Mike and Elizabeth came on Wednesday. The whole week I was just in shock and could not process the thought that somewhere, in my body, was cancer.

I was not able to see Dr. Leib (my family Dr.) until the next Wednesday. And that was only a consultation. Then the next day I saw my oncologist, Dr. McMullen. She said we should start with a PETscan, x-ray, and mammogram. Monday, I had the PETscan. Wednesday morning I got a call from Dr. McMullen saying that she wanted me to go see Dr. Barker right away for a surgery consultation to get a further biopsy of my neck and then to come see her. I thought maybe they needed to do the further biopsy because the PETscan didn't show anything. But I was wrong. Dr. McMullen informed me that I have stage 3b lung cancer. I could not believe it! How could a perfectly, young, healthy, fit, person get lung cancer who has never smoked! And the x-ray showed nothing!!! I was in shock yet again. When I went home, I decided I wanted to know what stage 3b lung cancer meant. Up to this point, I had not done any kind of search on the Internet. But now I did, and I should not have. According to the Internet, I had one year to live. One year! I was scared. My life flashed before my eyes. My kids lives flashed before my eyes. My God! The next couple of days were so very hard. I remember laying on the couch, crying, and asking Elizabeth to play her guitar for me and sing praise songs to me. That brought me so much comfort and peace. I felt that I would never feel normal again. And I hated feeling the way that I did. I am an optimistic person, and feeling that low, just felt horrible. Thankfully, it only took me a few days to come out of it, and to start feeling some hope and peace.

But then, my sister Katie brought it to my attention that Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer. I had never heard of it before. So we tested our basement (where Mike and I have been sleeping for a number of years) and discovered we did have very high amounts of Radon. The levels should not be over 4 and ours were at 80 something! I had not felt any anger until this moment! I was furious that I may have gotten lung cancer because I was sleeping in something that was poisoning me! Mike and I immediately stopped sleeping downstairs and moved our bedroom into Kyle's room (thank you Kyle!).