Hello family and friends,
Just wanted to let everyone know that our girl is in the hospital again. This time her levels are not to blame. She has been experiencing a lot of pain from her medi-port (square box implanted under the skin on her chest where medicine and iv's are inserted) and a few days ago they "cleared it" which was very painful for Kecia. They said it was clogged and that was causing the problem but that it should be fine. The pain and swelling got worse so today they did a thorough exam which revealed that it had turned into an infection in the muscle and tissue around the port. She was admitted to Trinity Medical Center in Carrollton (don't know which room yet) around 5pm. She will get continual antibiotics in hopes that it will control the infection. If it does not, she will have to undergo surgery to have that one removed and a new one implanted on the other side of her chest. They do not want to do that because any type of procedure is traumatic to her body and it leaves her with more risks of infection.
She is having some trouble with the surgical staff at the hospital that is leaving her very upset. They are really pushing her to go ahead and sign for the surgery tonight so they can do the surgery in the morning even though her doctor said they would wait a few days. They are upsetting her because they keep saying things like "the infection is close to your heart and we don't want to wait" and "we need to go ahead and do it..what's the problem?" She said she feels stupid and uncertain. We encouraged her to hold her ground and insist that she talk to her doctor before doing anything. Her cancer advocate has put in a call to him and we are waiting to hear back. (One member of the surgical team has come in again since then and tried to push the subject again. I suspect he has plans for later in the weekend and doesn't want to get paged in to do surgery on Sunday and would like to get her out of the way now.) Anyway, she could really use our prayers in the matter of peace of mind. She is alone, drugged up and very vulnerable. Please pray that God's presence will fill her room and give her not only peace, but also strength of mind as she makes important decisions. I will update you as soon as I know more.
Thanks to all who pray for us daily,
Jennifer and family
Friday, January 30, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Chapter 2 - The Eye of the Storm
It’s difficult to put into words exactly how one is feeling as they go through this process of “accepting” the unthinkable. I can only imagine how Kecia actually felt as she came to grips with the news she was forced to tell everyone who loves her. For me, it was a time of great “role confusion”. I wanted to be there for Kecia in whatever way that was. I just didn’t know how to do that. When she would talk about not treating the Cancer, I would feel a heavy sickness in the pit of my stomach and my mind would scream “tell her she can’t do that…she has to try and treat it…she can’t just do nothing”. Surely it was my job to be her cheerleader, right? Wasn’t this the part where I encouraged her to do whatever it took to get better? Isn’t that how we are supposed to support a person in Kecia’s situation? It seemed so. But I would always stop myself. As much as I hated to admit it, there was another way in which she may need my support. Over the next 4 days I prepared myself for the horrible idea that it might be my job to support her in doing nothing. I might have to be the one who told her it was okay if she didn’t want to endure the endless rounds of chemo and the misery and sickness that would accompany it. It might be my job to help her die. I knew that Kecia didn’t want to die. What 28 year old in the prime of their life does? But I did understand that if there was no chance of getting better, and if chemotherapy could only buy her a few more miserable months, then I was only being selfish to expect her to endure that for the benefit of those she would eventually be leaving behind. I immediately began praying fervently for Kecia ; for peace, for comfort from her debilitating pain, for clarity of thought as she made life and death decisions, and for a miracle on her behalf. According to the doctors, only a miracle could save her, so that’s what I asked for.
The first of my prayers was answered when Kecia’s true spirit emerged through the fog of fear and confusion. The determination and fight that has gotten her through so many difficult times in her young life erupted in full force. She decided she was not ready to go willingly at this point. She refused to lay down and die (quite literally) and geared herself up for the fight of her life. She knew this would no doubt be the most difficult and frightening thing she would ever do, but she would not do it alone. The first few days following her decision to seek treatment were like a blurr of activity. When asked how this was all going to play out, her doctor said “first we will try to control the cancer growth in an effort to buy you 3 or 4 months. If we are successful we will go for 6 months, and then a year. If we can get past a year we will look for another and another..one at a time and hopefully they will have a treatment that can rid the bone of cancer in time for you.” Honestly, that didn’t sound too encouraging, but we chose to hang on to the last of his words. We made the phrase “until there’s a cure” our motto. It had a realistic sound to it. It was a goal that seemed reachable. With all the money that goes into cancer research there could be a treatment for bone cancer in 5 years. That would be our finish line. That would be Kecia’s light at the end of her dark and frightening tunnel. She would just have to be here 5 years from now, whatever that took.
Her doctors set the ball in motion immediately because they knew there was not a moment to waste. Her Cancer was growing at enormous rates and time was not her friend. She had surgery to implant a medi-port in her chest. She underwent days of full body scanning so they could get accurate measurements and precise locations of her tumors. And radiation began within a week of diagnosis. In the meantime, friends and family rallied around her for encouragement and support. Prayer chains were enacted. Meals were delivered. The actual words were never spoken, but somehow, we all silently agreed that while Kecia was on the path for recovery, we would not speak of the grim and terrifying prognosis she was given that first day. We would not play the “what if” game. We would be single minded in her fight against Cancer. She had conveyed to us that she only wanted to undergo treatment if there was a chance that she could beat it. So with her decision to treat, we chose to believe that her chance at beating Cancer would come in the form of a miracle.
The first of my prayers was answered when Kecia’s true spirit emerged through the fog of fear and confusion. The determination and fight that has gotten her through so many difficult times in her young life erupted in full force. She decided she was not ready to go willingly at this point. She refused to lay down and die (quite literally) and geared herself up for the fight of her life. She knew this would no doubt be the most difficult and frightening thing she would ever do, but she would not do it alone. The first few days following her decision to seek treatment were like a blurr of activity. When asked how this was all going to play out, her doctor said “first we will try to control the cancer growth in an effort to buy you 3 or 4 months. If we are successful we will go for 6 months, and then a year. If we can get past a year we will look for another and another..one at a time and hopefully they will have a treatment that can rid the bone of cancer in time for you.” Honestly, that didn’t sound too encouraging, but we chose to hang on to the last of his words. We made the phrase “until there’s a cure” our motto. It had a realistic sound to it. It was a goal that seemed reachable. With all the money that goes into cancer research there could be a treatment for bone cancer in 5 years. That would be our finish line. That would be Kecia’s light at the end of her dark and frightening tunnel. She would just have to be here 5 years from now, whatever that took.
Her doctors set the ball in motion immediately because they knew there was not a moment to waste. Her Cancer was growing at enormous rates and time was not her friend. She had surgery to implant a medi-port in her chest. She underwent days of full body scanning so they could get accurate measurements and precise locations of her tumors. And radiation began within a week of diagnosis. In the meantime, friends and family rallied around her for encouragement and support. Prayer chains were enacted. Meals were delivered. The actual words were never spoken, but somehow, we all silently agreed that while Kecia was on the path for recovery, we would not speak of the grim and terrifying prognosis she was given that first day. We would not play the “what if” game. We would be single minded in her fight against Cancer. She had conveyed to us that she only wanted to undergo treatment if there was a chance that she could beat it. So with her decision to treat, we chose to believe that her chance at beating Cancer would come in the form of a miracle.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Chapter 1 - The Diagnosis
Imagine that you are a beautiful, young, successful woman who has just received her Master’s Degree in Counseling. You are working a full time job to pay the bills, a part time job to fulfill your internship hours and another part time job to pay off your new education. Somehow, you still make time for friends and enjoy a good movie, wings at the local sports club, and boating on the lake. You have a new boyfriend. He is handsome, hardworking, easy to talk to, and most importantly…makes you feel like the most important person in the world. Life is good! Except for that nagging pain in your back. You see a doctor…muscle relaxers don’t fix that “pulled muscle”. You see a chiropractor…steroids don’t fix that “herniated disk”. After several months of increasing pain you have scans done at the Sports Medicine Clinic and your entire world crashes around you in a matter of seconds! Just 2 weeks after your 28th birthday you are told that you have stage 4 breast cancer. It has already spread to your spine, hip bones, ribs, and one lymph node under your arm. You try so hard to process what the doctor is saying. You should be asking lots of important questions but all you can think is CANCER, I’m Dying…CANCER…STAGE 4…I’m DYING…HOW DO I TELL MY MOM…THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENIG TO ME!!! But it is. You are shaking and you don’t hear yourself ask the question, but you must have because he says “Maybe a year…but probably less.”
You leave the office and sit in your car crying hysterically. You have to tell someone. You need to talk about it to make it seem real but you can’t tell your mom. You are her only child, her best friend and she might not be able to take it. You are terrified but feel an overwhelming need to protect her. You call your aunt instead and when she picks up the phone the words just spill out. “I have stage 4 CANCER. It’s spread everywhere! I’m DYING! I can’t tell mom! PROMISE ME you won’t tell mom yet! Oh God, I’m Dying!” You repeat everything you can remember about what the doctor said….more tests, appointments to make…discuss treatment…You don’t know if you even want to treat it. If you are going to die anyway why be miserable with chemotherapy and more sickness? It’s hard to breath, your shaking, and that pain in your back is taunting you. You can picture the pain for what it really is now that you know it’s true identity. You think you can actually feel yourself dying. You can feel the Cancer eating away at you and you hate your own body. Everything you have accomplished thus far…everything you know and everything you have done..is irrelevant. None of it is important. None of it can help you now. The entire focus of your life has been changed in the past 2 hours. You remember being told “we can operate on the breast, but there is currently no cure for cancer once it is in the bones.” The realization of what that means floods you. You will not see your 29th birthday. You will never open the private practice you and your aunt dreamed of opening together. You won’t get married or have children. You won’t take that trip that you and your boyfriend had been planning.
You know you’ll talk to your mom tonight and you won’t be able to hide it. You decide to tell your parents, but you sit in the parking lot for a long time before you head that way. You want to pull yourself together before you go tell them. You are about to change their entire world. You fear it might destroy them!
This story is true. It is about my niece Kecia. She is my sister’s only child and my only niece. Not that it would matter if there were others. Our loss would be the same. I was only 10 when she was born and I love her dearly. I had originally gone to school to be a teacher. She had gotten her Bachelor’s in business but several years ago we were both looking for a career change and after much searching we decided to go back to college together. We would both get our Master’s in Counseling and open our own private practice. We are opposites when it comes to personality. I am outgoing, consider myself funny, very social, and enjoy a crowd. Kecia is quiet, a perfectionist when it comes to herself, hates the lime-light, enjoys small groups of close friends, and doesn’t think I’m so funny. But we are both avid animal lovers and we agreed on the path that our business should take. We were determined to help others using animal assisted therapy rather than just traditional counseling and we spend the next 2 years of school planning for our futures. We took all of our classes together. We studied together, critiqued each others papers, complained about teachers, and always worked together on group projects. Kecia said she hated sitting with me in class because she liked to sit on the back row and “just blend in”, but I always raised my hand to join class discussions. I sometimes embarrassed her because something said in class would strike me as funny and I would get us both giggling to the point of inappropriate. We would try to be polite but we couldn’t stop laughing and eventually we would excuse ourselves from class, laughing so hard there were tears in our eyes. Kecia told me one day after just such an event.. “if we we’re related I wouldn’t even be your friend.” Kecia worked full time while going back to school and I had just had baby #3 when we enrolled. Baby # 4 would come just a few weeks before we took our state board exams. It was not easy. But it is an experience I wouldn’t trade. That time we spent studying, worrying, and passing together is priceless to me. It quite possibly gave our relationship the strength it would need to face the days that were ahead in Kecia’s future.
You leave the office and sit in your car crying hysterically. You have to tell someone. You need to talk about it to make it seem real but you can’t tell your mom. You are her only child, her best friend and she might not be able to take it. You are terrified but feel an overwhelming need to protect her. You call your aunt instead and when she picks up the phone the words just spill out. “I have stage 4 CANCER. It’s spread everywhere! I’m DYING! I can’t tell mom! PROMISE ME you won’t tell mom yet! Oh God, I’m Dying!” You repeat everything you can remember about what the doctor said….more tests, appointments to make…discuss treatment…You don’t know if you even want to treat it. If you are going to die anyway why be miserable with chemotherapy and more sickness? It’s hard to breath, your shaking, and that pain in your back is taunting you. You can picture the pain for what it really is now that you know it’s true identity. You think you can actually feel yourself dying. You can feel the Cancer eating away at you and you hate your own body. Everything you have accomplished thus far…everything you know and everything you have done..is irrelevant. None of it is important. None of it can help you now. The entire focus of your life has been changed in the past 2 hours. You remember being told “we can operate on the breast, but there is currently no cure for cancer once it is in the bones.” The realization of what that means floods you. You will not see your 29th birthday. You will never open the private practice you and your aunt dreamed of opening together. You won’t get married or have children. You won’t take that trip that you and your boyfriend had been planning.
You know you’ll talk to your mom tonight and you won’t be able to hide it. You decide to tell your parents, but you sit in the parking lot for a long time before you head that way. You want to pull yourself together before you go tell them. You are about to change their entire world. You fear it might destroy them!
This story is true. It is about my niece Kecia. She is my sister’s only child and my only niece. Not that it would matter if there were others. Our loss would be the same. I was only 10 when she was born and I love her dearly. I had originally gone to school to be a teacher. She had gotten her Bachelor’s in business but several years ago we were both looking for a career change and after much searching we decided to go back to college together. We would both get our Master’s in Counseling and open our own private practice. We are opposites when it comes to personality. I am outgoing, consider myself funny, very social, and enjoy a crowd. Kecia is quiet, a perfectionist when it comes to herself, hates the lime-light, enjoys small groups of close friends, and doesn’t think I’m so funny. But we are both avid animal lovers and we agreed on the path that our business should take. We were determined to help others using animal assisted therapy rather than just traditional counseling and we spend the next 2 years of school planning for our futures. We took all of our classes together. We studied together, critiqued each others papers, complained about teachers, and always worked together on group projects. Kecia said she hated sitting with me in class because she liked to sit on the back row and “just blend in”, but I always raised my hand to join class discussions. I sometimes embarrassed her because something said in class would strike me as funny and I would get us both giggling to the point of inappropriate. We would try to be polite but we couldn’t stop laughing and eventually we would excuse ourselves from class, laughing so hard there were tears in our eyes. Kecia told me one day after just such an event.. “if we we’re related I wouldn’t even be your friend.” Kecia worked full time while going back to school and I had just had baby #3 when we enrolled. Baby # 4 would come just a few weeks before we took our state board exams. It was not easy. But it is an experience I wouldn’t trade. That time we spent studying, worrying, and passing together is priceless to me. It quite possibly gave our relationship the strength it would need to face the days that were ahead in Kecia’s future.
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