Thelma Gets Hers!

After Bob and Randy were gone, I decided to be a lot more careful with whom I choose to spend my time.  I spent more time with trying to be a mentor to the kids in our neighborhood and with my own family.  I also have several former students who follow me on Facebook, so it has always been important to me to set a positive example.

I dated occasionally but took things much more slowly.  The gentlemen that I would spend time with more than once were much nicer men and I felt like this was a good sign.

My health was continuing to deteriorate, I was hospitalized multiple times with pneumonia.  I coughed all the time, and sometimes the coughing fits would get so bad that I’d throw up.  I broke ribs and damaged my pelvic floor, which makes it harder for me to control my bladder.  The doctors could not figure out what was wrong with me.  They began looking into the possibility of autoimmune diseases.

My brother and his wife and kids had moved in.  It was not ideal.  The kids were hard to manage and my brother and his wife parented and interacted with each other in angry screams.  It was ugly.

I often hid out in my bedroom, playing games on my computer or sleeping, because I always felt sick.

My car had been repossessed.  I had paid cash for a heap of a Corolla I named “Blanch.”  She was old, and not much to look at, but you could always count on her to put out.

Ed and his wife split up.  She left and took the kids.  Ed stayed with me and soon began seeing the cousin of an old friend of mine.

There was a lot going on, but I was feeling the love pour in from friends and family, and I was making plans.  Even my neighbors were rallying around me because they loved me for providing a safe and fun place for the kids to play.

I had been having pain on one side of my lower abdomen and I’d been unable to eat for several days.  My regular doctor was at an Indian Health Clinic in Auburn, so it was a bit of a drive from my house in Sacramento. (My family is on the Cherokee dockets, so we get free basic health care at tribal supported facilities).  The doctor examined me and told me that he thought I had diverticulitis, which is a series of bulges in the intestines.  Food gets trapped and doesn’t digest and can cause infection.  He recommended that I go to the ER.

I went to the ER, and they immediately did an MRI.  After several minutes, the doctor came back and told me that there was a mass on my left ovary as well as evidence that my lymph glands were inflamed.  They suggested that it was likely ovarian cancer and I should see an oncologist.

I don’t know many people who can hear the words, “it might be cancer” without having a whole flood of panic and emotions.  I immediately called my mom and then I drove home.

For the next couple of years, I kept a journal of what I was experiencing.  You can find it here.  If you go there, remember to go back to the beginning, in 2014.  I named the mass Thelma and referred to it as such when I wrote about what I was going through.

I saw several doctors and oncologists over the next several weeks.  All signs pointed to cancer.  At home, I was just sick.  I was running a constant fever, taking ibuprofen as often as I could to keep the fever down.  I couldn’t even get up to take care of myself.  I begged my mom to let me come to stay with her for a while.  My mother relished the opportunity to baby me, again, and I can’t say I hated it.  She would wait on me and pate me when I needed it.  She’d tuck me into bed at night.

I went back home as more appointments came up.  Home was closer to the doctors I needed to see.  One of them was a gynecological oncologist.  She told me that the indicators that she checks for when diagnosing ovarian cancer were not there.  My numbers weren’t high enough.  Still, there were the swollen lymph nodes and the fever.  I felt horrible all the time.

There came a moment when I woke up with a sore throat.  It felt like strep and swallowing felt like I was swallowing a pinecone made of razor blades.  I sat on the edge of my bed with my head in my hands.  I wished I would just die.  It would hurt less and then I’d having nothing left to worry about.  My brother took me to the ER.  They ran some tests and put me on fluids and antibiotics.  My white blood cells count was off the charts.  After several more tests and exams, the doctors told me that the mass on my ovary was not cancer.  It was an abscess and it had been poisoning me for weeks.  I was lucky to be alive.  The abscess was drained, and I was bombarded with antibiotics.  I spent ten days in the hospital.

When I went home, my friends and family made sure my bills were paid and my dogs were cared for.  I was so overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support that I started reexamining my perception of myself.  I must be a pretty decent person to be loved like this by so many amazing people.