Sunday, August 26, 2012
Saturday, August 25, 2012
The Beginnings
It was shortly after graduation from college when I got the call my mom had ovarian cancer and was at the nearby UNC Cancer Center where they removed the tumor. In Feb 2006 close to five years after her battle had started it ended in the living room of the home she built. During her battle she choose to get tested to see if the family had the Brac 1 or Brac 2 gene that has been linked to cancer due to the high incident rate of cancer in our family. My sister got tested as a few other's did, myself I procrascted, deep down I knew I had the gene I just really didn't want the piece of paper with the confromation in black and white.
At the end of 2007 my journey began, by April 2008 I was fighting for my life, the dx. Stage IV Triple Negative Breast Cancer and BRAC 1 positive. My family had moved my sister who took a leave of absences from New Orleans to Raleigh, NC. My first day of chemo didn't go well we had been there since 7am it was now Noon and they still hadn't started the chemo which was suppose to take the rest of the day, being hungry I sent my sister to get some food from the food court. It wasn't long after she left when the bag of chemo arrived and was hooked up. I was in the last open cubicle area with six infusion chairs it was a tight space basically if the patients wanted to hold hands and sing a camp fire song they wouldn't have a problem. The nurse had pushed the start button and turned away to answer the question of the patient on my left. The first drop hit my blood stream, seconds later I have a knot in my stomach which force me to lean forward and u could see the Oh shit face of the older patients, I could feel my body burning it started in my stomach and went to my head. I had been told a reaction usually starts at your head and then goes down, not me. I grabbed the nurse's arm and she turned her head to look over her shoulder at me, I manage to mutter a knot in my stomach before it felt like the air was being squeezed out of my lungs. She immediately spun around hit the red button and yelled some code and nurses all over the floor come running, and then the PA comes can't remember the code but it was followed by my doctor being paged. The nurses started to flush out the IV and I was giving a shot not sure what it was but it took about 30 minutes before my stomach stoped hurting and I could breath fine. The nurse was like OMG I have never seen a patient react that quick you only had 1cc, basically once the first drip hit my body was like Oh Hell Know u not giving me this.
At the end of 2007 my journey began, by April 2008 I was fighting for my life, the dx. Stage IV Triple Negative Breast Cancer and BRAC 1 positive. My family had moved my sister who took a leave of absences from New Orleans to Raleigh, NC. My first day of chemo didn't go well we had been there since 7am it was now Noon and they still hadn't started the chemo which was suppose to take the rest of the day, being hungry I sent my sister to get some food from the food court. It wasn't long after she left when the bag of chemo arrived and was hooked up. I was in the last open cubicle area with six infusion chairs it was a tight space basically if the patients wanted to hold hands and sing a camp fire song they wouldn't have a problem. The nurse had pushed the start button and turned away to answer the question of the patient on my left. The first drop hit my blood stream, seconds later I have a knot in my stomach which force me to lean forward and u could see the Oh shit face of the older patients, I could feel my body burning it started in my stomach and went to my head. I had been told a reaction usually starts at your head and then goes down, not me. I grabbed the nurse's arm and she turned her head to look over her shoulder at me, I manage to mutter a knot in my stomach before it felt like the air was being squeezed out of my lungs. She immediately spun around hit the red button and yelled some code and nurses all over the floor come running, and then the PA comes can't remember the code but it was followed by my doctor being paged. The nurses started to flush out the IV and I was giving a shot not sure what it was but it took about 30 minutes before my stomach stoped hurting and I could breath fine. The nurse was like OMG I have never seen a patient react that quick you only had 1cc, basically once the first drip hit my body was like Oh Hell Know u not giving me this.
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